The Dangers of Being on the Fence

OK, so I'll freely admit that I started this blog over a year ago because A) I was torn between wanting to find an academic job and, at the same time, not knowing for sure if academe was really for me and B) I hoped to meet others facing a similar dilemma.


What have I learned over the past year? A few things.


1. There are lots of like-minded people out there, thankfully. I've always been an introverted loner who prefers to travel alone on occasion and sit quietly and not chat needlessly. Starting a blog was actually completely out of character for me. But I was sick of keeping everything bottled up: my angst about spending my youth getting a PhD, and digging myself into a major hole of debt, and my frustration about the uselessness of my degree. Once I realized (duh!) that I would have to beg to find a job but NOT look desperate, and that it would be nearly impossible to find work in my field, I realized what an idiot I was for having assumed that a PhD=gainful employment. How dumb am I? I mean, seriously, what was I thinking?


2. I am the most indecisive, flaky, weak-willed person on the planet. One minute I'm convinced academe is not for me, for various reasons, and then a few months later I'm flying all over the country interviewing for tenure-track positions. Why? Who the hell knows. Because I'm programmed to succeed? Because I'm deluded and don't know what I want? Because I'm a glutton for punishment? Probably all of the above. Here's an embarrassing old-school cartoon reference for you. In The Last Unicorn the wanna-be magician, Schmendrick, admits to the unicorn that he's finally achieved what he's always wanted, namely respect and power as a "real" magician. The unicorn says, "Does it make you happy?" His response: "Well, men don't always know when they're happy. But I think so." Why is that I still relate to this line twenty years later?

3. I've been on the fence primarily because I either don't know what I want to do with myself or haven't come to terms with it yet. (No, I don't want to pole dance or anything freaky.) But being on the fence is a dangerous place to be. You can jump off willy nilly, one way or another, at any time without thinking. I've interviewed for several jobs but rather than wait for a great nonacademic position to come along, I jumped off the fence the second a couple of academic jobs were offered to me. Why? Why did I jump off the fence right back into the shark tank that has (I think) made me relatively unhappy for the past decade? Who knows. Honestly, it's flattering to be wanted, to be sought after. Who cares why they want me. They want me! If everyone is fighting tooth and nail to get a slice of poop pie but then I'm offered two slices, how can I possibly resist?! That would be nuts, right?


4. Talking to other job seekers and PhDs looking to change jobs has helped me to come to terms with the fact that reading, researching, and writing (mostly quietly) is what many of us love to do. We love the life-long learning aspects of higher ed more so than the actual day-to-day grind of teaching and dealing with duplicitous administrators, whiny students, and backstabbing colleagues. But no one is going to pay us to be, essentially, a research fellow 24-7. We're lucky if they pay us to do anything.


5. I've accepted a tenure-track position and put all thoughts of alternate careers aside--for now. But I'm sill not convinced this is a happily ever story or that I've achieved the dream or whatever. I might just be delaying the inevitable. Of course, I'll try to shut up and just go with the flow for now but I refuse to completely succumb to the system and become a mindless, voiceless cog in the machine.


6. I've still got a lot to learn.

On the Move Hiatus: May-June 2011

It's that time of year again for me folks: moving time.  I've been moving from place to place for years now, so much so that I honestly don't know what I'll do with myself once I'm no longer packing my things up every few months. How do normal people, you know, live in one place? It boggles my mind just thinking about it.

But I've signed my contract and start working my new tenure-track job this fall, so for me there is one more major move to go and then hopefully I'll be able to take a break from all the packing and unpacking, at least for a few years. We'll see what happens.

Part of me, however, is really nervous about actually unpacking my things once I do arrive at my "final" destination this summer. I'm so used to leaving things in storage somewhere and only traveling with the essentials; I haven't put books in a bookcase or pictures on walls in as long as I can remember. Why bother? I've got pictures, books, DVDs, CDs, and framed prints that I haven't seen in years and years due to my (extremely modest) jet-setting lifestyle. 

So, for me, this move to the tenure track is also a major change in day-to-day existence. I won't be buying a house anytime soon--I've got WAY too much debt--but I hope to at least be able to stay put for a little while. That's got to feel good, right? 

Good luck to everyone out there in the middle of relocating or currently looking for work. I wish you an uneventful move or a successful job hunt, whatever the case may be. Since I'm on the move, this will be my last post for a couple of weeks. 

Eliza

Choosing Between Job Offers

It's that time of year--the end of the academic job-hunting season--and just about everyone I know who was on the market has either accepted a new position or is staying put in VAP or adjunct land.

Some are even walking away from the academy because they're sick of looking for a tenure-track job and starting to wonder how much more of their life will pass them by while they struggle to find academic employment. This has been a very disappointing season for many ABDs and PhDs who hoped to find work.

Even though I had finally come to terms with finding a non-academic job, I decided to give the academic job search another go and applied for six select positions. To my surprise, just when I was OK with walking away, academia sucked me back into its clutches.

I was incredibly fortunate on the market this year (for the first time ever) and actually had to decide which job offer I was going to accept and which one I was going to decline. I had no idea how to go about making this important decision because, like most of us, I was trained to say YES to pretty much any tenure-track offer extended to me. Having more than one option seemed unthinkable.

But it happened.

Here are the factors that I considered and which helped me to decide. Good luck to all those facing a similar dilemma.

Asking the right question about prep school teaching.

As I mentioned in earlier posts, the decision to jump from the tenure track to prep schools is not always an easy one. As I have discovered to my peril, this is true from a practical perspective (I tried to jump but my feet seem glued in place) but emotionally as well.

The question to which I kept returning is, "Do I really want to teach at an independent school?"

I took this question to my dad, who recently retired after thirty years of teaching English at an independent on the East Coast. He knows the job, he knows me - who better to consult? He wondered if I was asking the wrong question, and suggested that the question I need to ask is, "Do I want to teach at this independent school?"

While this may serve as a testament to my dim-wittedness, I was floored. Of course I should not have been - it has been over a year since I rejected the question, "Do I really want to teach at the collegiate level?" as far too broad. I do teach at the collegiate level, but I don't like doing so at Regional State University.

Reframing the question put to rest much of the angst I'd been feeling, for I no longer had to make a huge decision without truly knowing what I was deciding. I could simply make smaller decisions as they presented themselves.

While this change might be a problem in the long-term - what if I never find the right school? - in the short term it is incredibly freeing. An interview no longer engenders an existential crisis, but presents a specific question. So it's not a breakthrough in the search, but it does help with the emotional side of things.

Good luck, us.

Waiting for the End

Surrounded by piles of paper, not a contract in sight.

While Ben has continued interviewing for positions at prep schools, I've been waiting for the contract for my new tenure-track job to arrive in the post. These things take a bloody long time for no apparent reason. I realize that we're supposed to be patient, and let the academic machinery runs its laborious course, but I am definitely starting to get a tad impatient. I mean, christ, it's already May and I have yet to sign on an actual line (dotted or otherwise).

It's hurry, hurry, hurry, do you want this job? If so, act NOW! Right NOW! We want you!! Really, you do? How lovely; I'm thrilled! I accept!!! Do you hear that, world, I've accepted! Oh joy!

And then . . . nothing.

This is surprising given that I ended up with more than one tenure-track job offer and the universities in question knew time was of the essence. Still, moving from the verbal offer stage to the offer literally in my hand stage is taking 100x longer than I ever anticipated back when I started applying for jobs in the fall. The scary thing is that my job search began in September '10 and here it is, May '11, and I'm still playing the waiting game. Sure, it's unlikely that things will fall through at this point, thankfully, but I tend to learn toward the glass is half empty way of thinking. The proof is in the pudding. Until that puppy shows up, I'll remain on edge, waiting.

What truly boggles the mind is that nine months of my life have gone by while hunting for jobs and it felt, and continues to feel, like one big, exhausting, utterly stressful bad dream--despite the "happy" conclusion. I am so glad it's over but won't really felt relieved until I've signed and returned the sacred contract.

My word is my bond . . . I swear to work for you and teach the undergrads and produce whatever research I can and put up with difficult colleagues and play very, very nice, so long as you provide me with a paycheck and a solo office. That's really all I'm looking for right now, in addition to the contract. That and a stiff drink.

Additional Thoughts on the On-campus Interview

As I continue my death-march through the prep-school interview season, I have been amazed by a number of things. First, how badly I have botched my first few interviews. (For ugly details see this post.) Second, how generous the people who have interviewed me have been in offering advice.

I recently found out I am 0-for-3 in on-campus interviews (bad), but got some additional feedback on my interview (good), which I'll share here.

The good news is that I appear to have avoided the rookie mistakes of my first interview. Nobody at the third school came away thinking that I was so desperate to leave my current Uni that I would take any job offered. The bad news is that I did not do a particularly good job articulating why I wanted to teach at that particular school. When the school's head asked me "What kind of school are you looking for?" my answer was about Independent Schools as a whole, not about PP. (In part this is becaurse I felt profoundly ambivalent about PP. I had to swallow my initial answer, which had to do with teaching in a progressive school, which PP ain't.)

In any event, to the advice I received. In a nutshell, Do your research. When I had campus interviews for nationally-known colleges and universities, search committees never wondered why you wanted that particular job. In their thinking, who in their right mind wouldn't want to teach at University of Chicago.

Prep schools are not so full of themselves as this. They wonder why you would want to make this move, not just to independent school teaching but to their school in particular. To do this, be as specific as possible. What is it about the mission statement that speaks to you? Why do you love their approach to education? Why do you want to be a part of that specific community? As one person put it, "They want to hear about themselves."

There are two good ways to make the case for a particular school. Most obviously is in your answers to their questions. When they ask you why you want to get into independent school teaching, don't answer! Tell them why you want to teach at that particular school.

You can also do this by asking school-specific questions. Don't ask generic questions about the curriculum, ask about specific aspects of the department's curriculum. When you meet with senior administrators, refer to the mission statement or strategic plan. They want to know that you know them and that you are taking them seriously.

So as this season winds down, I feel pretty stupid in making so many basic mistakes. I hope I'll do better next time, and I hope that you will too.

Good luck us.

Letting go of the dream

As I sit, staring at the phone, wondering if I will receive The Call from a prep school I visited recenlty, I've had to wrestle (again!) with the prospect of giving up on my dreams. It is not my dream to teach in a prep school, and it never has been. But at the same time, it is not (and has never been) my dream to teach at a third-tier public uni, with a low salary and no money for research.

Now I know that very few people in the world have their dream jobs. As a group, lawyers are an unhappy crowd, and Lord knows my mother never said to herself, "I want to spend twenty-five years administering unincorporated areas of Tuscon!" And my wife has no earthly idea what she wants to do. The problem is that I am lucky enough to know what I want (to teach at a small college), but unlucky enough not to be able to do it.

I think that the hardest part about taking an offer is that as soon as I do, that dream - one which I have held on to for a quarter of my life - is gone.

I also worry that my reluctance to let go of the dream could warp my ability to see prep school jobs for what they are. Am I foolish enough to turn down a good position ("It's not the right fit.") in order to avoid letting go of the dream? That, it seems to me, would be the height of folly.

So let me ask you - how do you balance your lofty dreams and the crushing reality of the academic market?

What exactly am I getting myself into?

While I do a lot of whining on this blog, I have to admit that I've got it pretty good. I teach a 3-3 load with two preps. I have been teaching my survey long enough that lectures take about ten minutes to prepare. This semester I started spending two mornings per week on a project unrelated to my job; while I'm a bit more harried, nothing bad has happened. Think about that - I reduced my working hours by 20% and I barely noticed. My career is a scam. I could spend hours every week pouring over the most recent Shakespeare scholarship, but in class we spend our time figuring out what the words mean, so there's not a lot of pay-off. (I imagine I will be taken to task for this admission. For the record, I'm not proud of this - depressed, actually.)

The point of this digression is that when I jump to a prep school, I'm going to have to do a LOT more work. But what kind of work? And how much? I had no idea. To answer this question, I did a number of informational interviews, and in this process I ran into two kinds of teachers. The first of these was "Mary." She's a biology teacher at a prep school in California. She said that she works hard, but it's a job like many others, just with a weird schedule. She attends school plays, athletic events, and meets after school with the student paper editors.

Then I talked to "Steve" the head of a prep school in the midwest. He painted a radically different picture of teaching. A "real" teacher works 70-hour weeks (including weekly tutoring all day on Saturday), has the skill of a surgeon, the patience of a saint, and the dedication of a martyr. His unspoken assumption was that because I took the time to get a PhD, I am fundamentally unfit for teaching. (I suppose that if I really cared, I wouldn't have bothered. (Bear in mind that Steve's description fits many boarding schools, but he wasn't at one.)

Obviously these visions of prep school teaching don't have much in common, and the disconnect gave (gives) me the heebie jeebies. I think of myself as hard-working and dedicated to my students, but I have no interest in working 70-hours per week for $55k per year, even if I do have summers off. So I dropped a note to a friend who recently began teaching at a prep school and asked him if Steve was right. Here's what he had to say:

Well, it's about half BS and about half true.

1. As far as I can tell, there is a cohort among teachers who believe that we are saints from on high who must dedicate ourselves totally to our spouse: teaching. We must never, ever say anything critical, do anything grumpy, or fail to work ourselves into little nubbins. We should be proud to be paid so little, because it proves we're doing it for love.

So, obviously, this is a load of poo. This is self-righteous justifying by people who enjoy looking down their noses. The best example is that YouTube video about "What Teachers Make" where the dude rants along (enjoyably) and eventually gets to "I make a difference." Yes, but that doesn't make you any better than anybody else.

2. The true part. Students want to know that you care about them. And they exist in a psychological environment in which they are convinced that the entire world centers on them. So they can be easily hurt, or offended, and you must be careful. Also, they are deeply touched when you exhibit some interest in their successes. It's helpful in the classroom when they know you care about them outside of the classroom.

You cannot just teach your classes and go home. Maybe after 10 years. Being a part of the school community is part of the job. But it's - honestly - not that big a deal. I advise a student club, and two or three times per semester I go to something. A football game, a play, a debate tournament, whatever. I try to go once to games for a team on which my students play. But it's fun, too. They give out ice cream and I see my colleagues and relax a bit. This is my community so I socialize with them.

And yes, people want you to demonstrate your interest in the school by "supporting" things. You might go to a game but you will also be expected to wear red and give a dollar and clap enthusiastically and all that stuff. High school students are very earnest. Fine. It's easy.

If all that sounds terrible, you should factor that into your decision. You said that the dream job was working at a liberal arts college, though. And such schools expect *exactly* the same kinds of appearances. At [small college] I went to debate tournaments, lectures, plays, performances, and art shows. It was about the same level of commitment.

Crunching the numbers, or taking the emotion out of career decisions

Among my favorite non-academic activities is playing poker. I'm not great by any stretch, but I'm better than most people who play in person or on-line. I've also done a bit of reading on the subject (there's an entire literature, complete with the Fundamental Theorem of Poker, and ever-increasinly complex mathematical models). It is no coincidence that many of the top players in the world come out of finance, engineering, or other math-heavy disciplines.

One of the issues that all authors agree upon is that you should never make a decision based on emotion. Your gut might tell you something, but before you act, you need to crunch the numbers. When you bet, there are a limited number of outcomes possible, and a limited number of hands your opponent could have. One guy I play with, Lighter Mike, only raises with the very best hands - he bluffs 0% ofthe time. So when he bets, I know how often I am winning or losing.

So what if we apply this approach to the job search? You can modify this process based on your own situation.

If I stay in my current position forever there is a 0% chance I will be content.

If I stay in my current position for another year or two, there is a R% chance I will land a tenure-track position that I want. (R>0, but not by much.)

Okay, so what if I take the job I discussed in my most recent post? Here's where the math can help. The way if figure it, here's how the numbers break down:

X% chance that I like the school and the career, and stay forever.
Y% chance that I like the career but not the school, and I swap it out for a job I like
Z% chance that I hate the job and the career and forever regret leaving academia

Of these, the only clear loser in the long-term is Z.

There are two remaining challenges. First, of course is assigning numbers to these variables. If my own mind and the job marked were as easy to figure out as Lighter Mike is, we wouldn't have a problem. But we can try.

The second problem is that you have to factor in the long-term effects of these variables. We don't play Russian Rouletter very often because while the odds of losing are only 1 in 6, losing has a very steep downside.

And that, I think is the problem I'm having. The downside of Z is (or at least seems) so high, it makes me crazy with fear. I'm in my forties, and am thinking about leaving a career/job for life to do something I have never done. This is a young person's game. I can't stop wondering, What if I'm wrong?

You can't know, of course, you just have to shove your chips into the middle and see what happens.

Good luck, us.

Finding the right fit

When you go on the acadmeic market as a junior scholar, the issue of "fit" rarely comes up from the candidate's perspective. Search committees look for "fit", but nobody (sane) has ever said to a candidate, "Don't take a job if the fit doesn't feel right." We are told: "Take the job you get." "It's your first job, not your last." Or, "Take the job and then write your way to a better school."

This is lovely advice for those who live in the distant past, but not particularly helpful today. Depending on your field, unless you turn yourself into solid gold, your first job likely IS your last, and you are not going to write your way to a better school.

I bring up this digression, as I am currently wrestling with the issue of fit on the prep school market. I recently returned from an on-campus visit at Very Old Preparatory Academy - the kind of place that counts Presidents and Senators among its alumni. They have pretty amazing faciliites, more money than God...and lots of traditions and rules. It just didn't feel like a fit.

My dad taught social studies for many years at a progressive (and elite) school. I remember that his classroom was a riot of books, maps, and student projects. Not here. At VOPA, classrooms had a whiteboard and framed posters. They were like a doctor's examination room. I couldn't help wondering how they would react if I piled books around my classroom, or grew my hair down to my ass. (I would not do the last of these, but I still wonder what they would say.)

So what to do?

My dad actually gave me one excellent piece of advice.

I made reference to your uncle being an unhappy as a progressive teacher in a traditional school. I think some people can pull off that, and some schools will allow a measure of radical dissent and even welcome the diversity (perhaps safety valve) that such divergence affords.

If VOPA offers the job, ask them about their comfort with your differences.

So, where does this leave me? Probably nowhere until I get an offer, if I get one.

But then the question I have (for you) is which proposition is more insane:

1. To take a job in which the fit is not qutie right on the assumption that I can use it get a position that does fit. (There is also the possibility that I will love the position once I get there.)

2. To hold out for a job that is a good fit, even if it means staying in my current position/extending the job search another year.

Either of these is completely nuts in an academic search, but what about prep schools?

Good luck, us.