The semester is almost over at University Job #2, and I only have a few weeks at University Job #1. I'm ecstatic, but I'm also a little sad that I won't be teaching at UJ#1 next semester. I'll be, instead, writing like a mad woman to finish my last two chapters, hopefully getting an interview (not holding my breath), and getting this house ready to put back on the market, as we took it off after our last buyers' loan fell through. We didn't want it to set all through the winter months, and I was just too overwhelmed with everything to keep it sparkling clean and perfect all the time.
The Bunny and I have made a pact: no matter the job market outcome, we are moving up and out of here next summer. The numbers don't look good, kids, so let me see if I can break it down for you. Last year, when I served on a job search committee for a candidate in our department at UJ#1, we had over 40 applicants for 1 job. As I am in modern and contemporary literature, that number expands exponentially, so I've heard that some of the jobs that I applied for have over 300 applicants. Though I've sent out over 35 applications for tenure track positions, non-tenured instructorships in cool ass towns, and one-year fellowships, I can't ignore the statistics. The lottery that is the academic job market has really been a Debbie Downer for me lately. I alternate between self-deprecation and unrealistic optimism. Today I'm somewhere in between the two.
Something on paper will have to stand out enough for my file to be pulled from the mountain of CVs stacked in the chair's office at each university. If by some slim chance my application is chosen for advancement, I'll have to knock down the other short list contenders until I am the last woman standing. The task ahead of me seems insurmountable, and I wonder now--with all of the school debt, research, nights without sleep, and years of delaying bits of adulthood in order to finish school--is it worth it? I can only be glad that my man is aware and ready for whatever happens next year. He will go where I go; we will make it work.
The market is a complex process. Academics don't get to choose where they want to live. Every Fall, the job calls are posted by committees at schools around the nation/world. Each job has a department and a field of specialization. I first look at the lists for jobs in English, but then I am limited to calls for jobs that are applicable to my dissertation research areas: modern/contemporary drama and modern/contemporary American literature with a specialization in the South. Even though I have taught upper-division courses in British and Children's Literature, I am not qualified for a job in this area. Out of the jobs that I applied for, only about half are firmly in my specialty, which means that I will be promptly ejected from several piles based wholly on this fact. Let's just say, hypothetically, that I still am a strong applicant based on my field of research alone. I must then be in a tier of schools that is at least at the standard of or above the teachers within that department. That cuts out several jobs where the department's professors--I know because I neurotically peruse each job's departmental website--all studied at Ivy League schools. They won't hire my metropolitan state school ass based on academic politics alone. Let's say that leaves me with 10 jobs for which I'm qualified based on my education and research area qualifications. Then they'll look at my publications, my teaching record, my letters of recommendation, and my writing sample. If even one committee member is not convinced I'm their girl, or if my work somehow overlaps with Dr. so-n-so's project about women and abuse narratives, etc., then I'm flicked into the 'no' pile.
Then again, let's say I get an interview all the way to campus--a 1 in 100 shot--then I will be competing with at least two other candidates at that level. If I show up and I'm too over/under dressed for their departmental tastes, that could screw me in the end. If I am too overeager, too nervous, or too chatty, that, too, could be the kiss of death. My advisor likens it to a combination lock where every turn must fit precisely. Each component must fall into place for one to achieve the tenure track position. In this market, I'm more likely to find a unicorn galloping through my living room eating E.T. cereal and singing INXS than to land a tenure track position. I'd argue the same for a decent-pay instructorship in a cool ass town with the way things are going this year.
Believe it or not, I'm grinning as I type this because I realize that teaching in academia is not the only thing that would make me happy. I'm still down for opening a vegetarian restaurant in a little mountain town. The Bunny and I want to get a whole litter of pygmy goats and rocking chairs on a porch looking out over a mountain range. I want to have some babies in a few years, and I want to have time to read what I want to read when I want to read it again--a luxury I have missed since I began grad school five years ago.
Maybe I'll look back on this blog and laugh because the future me knows how silly this girl is acting right now. Maybe I'll read this blog from behind a desk in an office at a nice university. Then again, maybe I'll balance my laptop over my knees while I lounge at the base of my backyard by the mountains/rolling hills/beach. Either way, I'm okay with everything. Yeah, I guess I'm having an optimistic day.
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
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5 comments:
I think you are so awesome. I try to live my life with the same type of attitude. Any school will be enriched by you! At the same time, a restaurant in a small, funky, hip town would be nice.
I checked the venting page on academic wiki and I understand why you feel so disheartened at this point. I tried to filter these people's turgid rants through a pair of very rational lenses and my conclusion may seem to you somewhat unrealistic and moronically optimistic, BUT some of the complaints on that page violated my sense of reality. First of all, some posters claim to be top scholars in their field with major publications, such as articles in reputable journals and books. Second of all, their teaching reputations are supposedly impeccable with grand successes and divine reverberations. Most of these people, after having shared their magnificence with the rest of the posters, complain about not having been able to get a TT (not necessarily at Ivy colleges, but small liberal colleges). I am sorry, but this just doesn't sound reasonable to me. I paid more attention to the comments made by SC members who, after having dared to advance their "insolent" theories about the job market, i.e., that some doctors in philosophy simply don't have what it takes to succeed (or that their materials present them in a mediocre light), were bashed and dismissed as arrogant pricks who have a disposition for inequity and drama.
I am realistic enough to understand that the job market (especially this year) is EXTREMELY bad, but it has been this way since the 70s (according to T and other trustworthy sources). In 90% of the cases, the ones who make it on the job market are the ones who are cut for the academic work. Period. Why would SC choose a poorly prepared candidate that will affect that institution's reputation over a top researcher and teacher? (I am not talking about elitist colleges which, we all know, have an inner circle and a tradition that they preserve, no matter what).
What I'm trying to say here is that I fully trust your academic capabilities and I KNOW you'll present yourself in the best light possible. I don't really think that the job market is THAT random. It becomes random and unfair for those who are unsuccessful, who prefer blaming the system instead of trying to genuinely improve their chances.
I rest my case :)
Whichever doors open to you, each will do so with great potential. Savor the tummy-tickling sensation that accompanies this great plunge in to the new and unknown. Savor every damn second, both the ups and the downs. At the core of these manic-prone periods, we find out more about ourselves than is possible during comfy stases.
I do hold some hope that one of our funky mountain towns calls to you both. My "New West" needs more residents like you and your man.
Keep smiling. -R
Whichever doors open to you, each will do so with great potential. Savor the tummy-tickling sensation that accompanies this great plunge in to the new and unknown. Savor every damn second, both the ups and the downs. At the core of these manic-prone periods, we find out more about ourselves than is possible during comfy stases.
I do hold some hope that one of our funky mountain towns calls to you both. My "New West" needs more residents like you and your man.
Keep smiling. -R
This may sound rather simplistic, but the best advice I can give you for the unforeseeable is this:
Don't be a self-fulfilling prophecy. If Bette runs the numbers for too long, she'll toss herself aside as an unremarkable statistic. And she deserves far better than that.
xx
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