A Message from One Who Made It

Guest Post by "Blunt Academic" (a pseudonym to protect his or her snarky identity)

I graduated with a Ph.D. 5 years ago, taught as an adjunct at a community college for a semester, landed a tenure-track job in the middle of nowhere, landed a better tenure-track job, still in the middle of nowhere, and am now on the market again looking to move up. I've worked my ass off the entire time and have never had to stress about whether or not to leave the academy. I'm in, baby, I'm in for life.

But even if things hadn't worked out, I would have figured something out and made the Ph.D. worth my while. I would have found work outside the academy and never regretted getting a Ph.D. Indeed, I wouldn't have spent years dwelling on the faults of the ivory tower, or writing tortured blog posts (sorry, Eliza), or looking for other angsty ex-academics to share my miseries with. I would have just gotten on with things.

So when I see Ph.D.s fretting about how they “pissed away their youth and finances” earning a doctoral degree, and are now totally disillusioned with the academic job market and vicious tenure-track world , I wonder what all the fuss is about.

I mean, it’s just money, right? Weren’t you following your passions when you applied to grad school? Didn’t you enjoy spending your 20s thinking and learning, surrounded by smart/crazy academics, free to explore your interests, rather than sitting in a cubicle day after day making widgets and earning money. Didn't you love the thrill of working with Professor DryBones?

I know your dream is to be me. Good for you.

Is money really that important in the grander scheme of things? Probably, you would have frittered away all that hard-earned, longedfor pile of money on iphones, digital cable, trips to Vegas, beer, hamburgers, knick knacks for the domicile, what have you, just like the rest of America. BORING. EMPTY. POINTLESS.

So what’s a little debt compared to the once in a lifetime experience of getting a PhD? Seriously? Why are you so bitter about everything? You made a choice: live with it. What’s there to be upset about? Grad school helped make you the person that you are now (even if that person is poor and a tad PO at the system and depressed, but that’s neither here nor there).

Sure, it’s nearly impossible to land a tenure-track job but them’s the breaks. Not everyone makes the final cut and, of those that do, not everyone actually enjoys the academic lifestyle. Because, at the end of the day, it’s still a job, like any other, not a magical prize at the end of a rainbow. So you either suck it up and make the most of it or fantasize about something better “out there.” The choice is yours to make.

Or, if you can’t find work as a full-time professor and are forced out of the academy, you do what you need to do: stop bitching and moaning and start looking elsewhere for employment. No point blaming others or wallowing in regret. Just get out there, find a job, and move on with your life. Let go of the past. Some of you just may not be good enough (or interesting or insane enough) to land an academic job, whether you've got a Ph.D. or not. I know it sounds harsh, but that’s life. It’s short, brutal, and unfair. More to the point: In the blink of an eye you and everyone you know will be dead anyway. In the meantime, why make such a fuss?

Your Friend,

Blunt Academic

(Editor's note: I claim no responsibility for the opinions expressed in the above guest post!)

Myths of the Tenure Track

Public domain image

Guest Post by Benjamin Harrison
As I consider the prospect of leaving academe (or, “leaping from the ivory tower” to borrow WorstProfessorEver’s felicitous phrase), and get to know more people who are already out on the ledge, I find myself wondering, “How in the world did we get here? How did we find ourselves in jobs that are so far from our original goal?”

While in graduate school, I had many conversations about the future and, no matter how drunk I became, I never said, “I’d like to teach at a mediocre school. I want to be thrilled when 1/3 of my students do the reading. I want to teach broad surveys to students with no interest in the humanities, who I’ll never see again. I want my research to wither and die for lack of funding.” And I’m damn sure that when my friend Hoboken Jones (pseud.) finished his doctorate at Ivy U, his career plans did not include “Come in second in multiple job searches, and spend years on end adjuncting for lousy pay.” How, then, do really smart (or at least well-educated) people find themselves stuck in lousy jobs and careers when other options are available?


The answer lies in two myths that prevail in most graduate programs. For their entire graduate careers students are told, and tell each other, that getting a tenure-track job is the alpha and omega of their studies. What is more, students come to believe that landing on the tenure track leads inevitably to professional fulfilment. This message is problematic on a number of fronts. Most obviously, the ongoing collapse of the job market places success beyond the reach of many scholars. But the “tenure track = success” message also omits the fact that – to be frank – many tenure-track jobs are not all that great. Whether it’s the workload, working conditions, or location, many of those who land tenure-track positions find academe lacking in important ways.

To be clear, I do not believe that graduate advisors knowingly set up their students for disappointment. But I do think that professors at Berkeley, Chicago and Yale have no earthly idea what life is like at chronically underfunded, third- and fourth-tier universities. They’ve never taught students who are unprepared for college. They don’t know that the pay at many schools is too low to support a family. They have never had to pay for conference registration out of their own pockets. But how could they know these things? Graduate advisors are among the lucky ones,  “The lottery winners, those with light teaching loads, sabbaticals, and research support.” They travel through life blissfully ignorant of how the other eight-tenths live; and if I were in one of these good jobs, I would not even consider leaving. I don’t have a particularly good solution to this problem. Simply informing graduate faculty and students of this reality will do no good. If the demonstrable horror of the job market does not dissuade a graduate student, complaints from a few malcontents on the tenure track are unlikely to make any difference. Every student is convinced that she will be the one to grab the brass ring.

The second myth that sustains miserable faculty is that with enough hard work, a good scholar can publish his way out of an undesirable job. While this may have been true ten, fifteen or twenty years ago, in today’s world the “starter job” is no more real than Bigfoot. No matter how good your CV, if there are no jobs, there are no jobs. But myths are more comforting than reality. The myth of “writing your way out” allows us to continue believing that while the academic hiring process is cruel and capricious, academe as a whole remains a meritocracy. Good scholars can find good jobs.

The perpetuation of the “write your way out” myth is pernicious and demonstrably at odds with reality, but survives because it serves a number of powerful interests. Most obviously, it comforts young faculty when they discover that their library has not purchased any books in their field since 1975. “No problem,” I told myself four years ago. “I won’t be here long.” Second, it comforts graduate advisors. If their students wind up with a 4-4 teaching load and no research support, it’s because their work is substandard, not because academe rewards excellent scholars with mediocre jobs. While no advisor wishes unhappiness on her protégés, it’s much easier to stomach an underperforming student than to admit that you are sending all your students into unsatisfying careers.

Finally, this myth allows schools to treat their faculty badly. For as long as junior scholars continue to believe that one more grant, article, or monograph will allow them to move up the academic ladder, they will tolerate lousy conditions for low pay. If the day ever comes that masses of junior faculty realize that their current job is as good as it gets, universities will have a problem. But to any administrator who might read this and consider raising salaries, renovating classrooms, and increasing the library’s budget, don’t worry. Even if your faculty start fleeing in droves, there are plenty more where they came from. The myth is that durable.

Introducing "Benjamin Harrison": Regular Guest Contributor

My name is "Benjamin Harrison" (a pseudonym), and I’m jumping off the tenure track. For the last few years, I’ve been an assistant professor in the humanities at a non-flagship state university. I was one of about a hundred applicants, so when I got the job I felt lucky. I moved my family here, and we thought I/we could be happy, but it has turned out otherwise.

The largest issue is family. I just can't raise my kids here. The state is incredibly insular: the top grads from the top high schools go to, not Harvard, or Berkeley, or Williams or anywhere else that requires an essay portion on the application, but to Huge State University because they have a famous football team and are the only school on anyone's radar.

There are also financial issues. I have not received a raise in four years, and none are on the horizon. (When I earn tenure, that raise will be about 5%, so I'll get back a bit less than inflation has taken away.) There is little institutional money for archival research, and nowhere near enough for a trip overseas - which is where my archives are. While my children could attend the university at which I teach at a 50% discount, I would pay full-freight to send them to a university in the same system.

Obviously I am far from alone in this situation. The good news for most third-tier institutions such as mine is that the majority of humanities faculty have concluded that the sacrifices are worth it. They may not be happy with their current situation but if that is the only way to stay in academe, they are willing to do what it takes.

I have come to a different conclusion: In the coming academic year I will search for a job teaching at the secondary level, and blog about my experience here. My goal is to provide some insight into the process for other Ph.D.s and A.B.D.s who are considering a similar move, and perhaps a forum for discussion.

More Crackdowns on the Lone Star Professoriate

Have you heard? Professors in the College of Public Affairs and Community Service at the University of North Texas will soon be required to spend a minimum of four hours a day, four days per week, on campus. According to the new policy, adopted last week, the extra faculty face time is intended, in theory, to allow students greater access to professors and more easily facilitate interdisciplinary collaboration.
For more on the story, see
http://chronicle.com/article/Professors-at-U-of-North/124308/

Sounds like another top-down Lone Star higher ed accountability measure to me. Speaking of which . . . A&M faculty are not taking the new, "silly" evaluation measures lying down. [For more on this earlier story, see below, "What's WRONG with Texas?"] They're doing what professors do best: discoursing and objecting (politely and on paper, of course).