Читать книгу The Academic Job Search Handbook - Jennifer S. Furlong - Страница 9

Chapter 1

The Structure of Academic Careers

Now more than ever, getting a doctoral degree presents one with an uncertain return on the investment of time, energy, and thought. Even with the credentials you need to become a tenure-track faculty member, the desired outcome is not guaranteed: you are entering the job market at a time when higher education is subject to intense financial constraints, external and internal assessment, competition, and accelerating technological change. These national trends have significant impact on individual careers. Higher education is now characterized by a consumer-oriented model, with increasing demands placed on institutions by employers, donors, legislators, parents, and students themselves. Institutions of higher education, both nonprofit and for-profit, are also under increased political scrutiny. The pressure to compete for research grants has intensified, and the amount of research required to achieve tenure has increased. One of the surest statements that can be made about the next generation of academic careers is that many of them will be unlike recent or current ones.

Technology has enabled faculty members to work with students inside and outside the classroom and to connect with colleagues and students across the world in a manner that was not possible ten or twenty years ago. There are also more ways for academics to share their work with others, not only in the academy but with a broader audience. Now institutions of higher education overtly seek to build a more diverse and international student body, believing that doing so enriches the intellectual and social experience of all. Many institutions are actively working to bring on board faculty who are diverse in their intellectual outlook as well as in their background.

In spite of these many changes, it is important to understand how academic jobs have traditionally been organized. The system of higher education in the United States is bewildering in its variety and complexity. Unlike many countries, the United States has no national, in the sense of federally funded, universities, though much funding for research, particularly scientific research, comes directly from the federal government. Its major universities, both private and state-funded, house faculties of arts and sciences and major professional schools. There are also a variety of smaller institutions, some that are publicly funded, and many that are private, and that peculiarly American institution, the four-year college. Privately funded institutions are mostly secular. Those funded by religious institutions have a religious influence on campus that varies from nonexistent to omnipresent. Two-year community colleges are an increasingly important segment of higher education. Students, parents, and policy makers look to them to increase access and affordability. Universities run as for-profit businesses have been part of the educational landscape for many years. Students at all these diverse institutions who are U.S. citizens are able to fund their education with federal loans.

Both colleges and universities (or campuses of major universities) may enjoy either regional or national reputations. As a general rule, universities of national reputation place the most emphasis upon research as the criterion of success for faculty members. Teaching is most likely to be emphasized at less prestigious universities and at four-year colleges, although four-year colleges of national reputation also require substantial research of their faculty members. Moreover, institutions of all types are offering online programs, some of which allow students to complete a degree without ever being on campus.

Both student and faculty life are affected by conditions of faculty employment. At some institutions, most faculty are full time. Others rely on many part-time instructors. Faculty and other staff members at some institutions are unionized. Where unions exist, membership may be high across the board or vary widely from school to school and department to department.

The Structure of Academic Positions

Given the variety of institutions, the similarity of their promotional structures is surprising. The structure of academic hiring has been dominated by the tenure system, with a fairly orderly ladder that at most institutions leads from assistant professor to associate professor (with tenure) to full professor. This “tenure-track” route leads to status as a standing member of the faculty with full rights of participation in institutional decision making, and what is close to a lifetime guarantee of a job, barring economic upheaval or conviction for criminal activity. Tenure continues to be scrutinized by state legislatures and boards of trustees, and a few institutions have dismantled their tenure systems. For now, however, achieving it is still the goal of almost everyone who first accepts a faculty position.

Tenure-track positions have been supplanted in many institutions by a variety of positions once conceived of as temporary: instructorships, lectureships, and visiting and research assistant/associate professorships. These positions are often called “contingent” positions. The American Association of University Professors released longitudinal data on the trends in instructional staff employment from 1975 to 2011. In 1975, faculty members with tenure or on the tenure track made up 44.5 percent of instructional staff; in 2011, this number was 23.5 percent. Part-time and full-time non-tenure track faculty made up 57.2 percent of instructional staff in higher education in 2011, up from 35.3 percent in 1975. Graduate student teaching held constant; graduate students represent about 20 percent of instructional staff. (If they are counted as contingent faculty, the percentage of contingent faculty making up instructional faculty rises to 76.4.)

Contingent teaching positions have always existed for a variety of institutional reasons: to cover heavy teaching loads for introductory courses in a department that does not have enough, or any, graduate students to meet the demand; to replace a faculty member who is on sabbatical; to enable individuals able to secure research funds to be associated with a university. In a professional school, such as a school of nursing or a school of architecture, there may be a preponderance of part-time clinical professors or professors of practice. These faculty members are often professionals who supplement their main employment with teaching and provide students with hands-on experience. Some contingent faculty members prefer working part time for other professional or personal reasons. Nevertheless, many, if not most, of those working in contingent positions would prefer to have a tenure-track appointment and its benefits. Because adjunct salaries are lower and typically include few, if any, benefits, these positions are primarily created as institutional attempts to avoid the costs of tenure-track positions. In addition, use of adjuncts affords institutions more flexibility in curriculum planning.

Struggling with government cutbacks in funding for higher education, colleges and universities have also had to deal with the effects of the “uncapping” of a mandatory retirement age. By federal law, institutions cannot require faculty members to retire merely because they have reached a certain age. Many tenured faculty members of traditional retirement age (who also tend to be the highest-salaried members of their departments) are choosing to continue teaching, adding greatly to personnel costs and, by some accounts, providing fewer entry opportunities for new Ph.D.s. Not uncommonly, when a faculty member does retire, his or her expensive tenure-track position is converted by the institution to a non-tenure track position.

Even though contingent positions may be held by the same individual and renewed over a period of several years, they are best thought of by job candidates as temporary, because they are outside the school’s structure of permanent employment. In many cases, holding such a position does not offer an inside track for permanent employment with the department, because if a tenure-track position becomes available a national search will be conducted. Most candidates holding these temporary positions continue to compete for tenure-track positions, so many assistant professor announcements will draw applications from experienced Ph.D.s, as well as newly minted ones.

Hiring and promotion are entirely market-driven and jobs are nationally advertised, garnering an extremely large pool of candidates. Occasionally, well-resourced institutions will compete for candidates in “hot” fields, using salaries, reduced teaching loads, and special research facilities to attract candidates. No matter how informed you are about hiring trends at the time you go on the market, your academic job search is likely to be challenging, both intellectually and emotionally. Preparing in advance for this challenge, though it may not guarantee your success, will help you to best position your research and teaching for the market and to manage the stressors inherent in the process.

Faculty Paths to College and University Administration

Educational institutions, even small ones, are also complex organizations with managerial structures. They have physical plants, staff, investments, and budgets in tens of millions of dollars. Therefore they need the same sorts of managers as are found in the business world. The management of academic programs, on the other hand, is a responsibility usually held by those who have followed an academic career path. A faculty member interested in academic administration typically begins by taking on a greater than ordinary share of administrative and committee tasks in his or her department and institution. A common path might lead from department chair to dean to provost, usually the title for an institution’s chief academic officer. Some institutions choose their president from those who have followed this route. Others do not, looking for a president with substantial experience in a profession, business, or government, or on the business side of managing a university.

The climb to academic administration generally begins after at least obtaining tenure, and, more likely, after becoming a full professor. Individuals who are strongly drawn to administrative activity can certainly find entry-level positions with good possibilities for promotion. These positions may have a lower ceiling on career advancement than administrative roles available to faculty members.

Movement Between Institutions During a Career

In some fields, particularly science and engineering, several years of postdoctoral fellowships or research appointments are required in order to build a candidate’s record of research to a competitive level so as to obtain a tenure-track slot at a major research institution. People in those fields almost inevitably change institutions early in their careers. In the past this type of research experience previous to obtaining a tenure-track position was necessary only for those pursuing a career in high-level research. Now it is extremely challenging for candidates in certain fields without postdoctoral experience to get tenure-track positions, even at institutions without a national reputation. In addition, social scientists and scholars in the humanities are increasingly serving as postdoctoral fellows and visiting assistant professors both in the absence of tenure-track opportunities and to build a research platform and, by extension, their CVs.

Despite tenure’s presumption of lifetime employment, faculty members in all fields increasingly move between institutions in the course of a career. Typical occasions of moves may include not getting tenure at one institution; being “lured away” at a higher salary or rank by another that is trying to build its department; and responding to a job opportunity for a spouse or partner.

To some extent, there is a national hierarchy of colleges and universities, roughly correlated with the research reputations of their faculty members and their selectivity in admitting students. In addition, there is something of a national hierarchy of departments, based on approximately the same standards. For example, an institution of generally average quality may sometimes house one of the premier departments in a given discipline.

It is generally easier to move from an institution of higher status to one of lower status than to move in the other direction. To some extent, this is a function of “name recognition.” In addition, the most prominent institutions generally provide the best facilities for research on the part of their faculty members, in terms of equipment, libraries, and reduced teaching loads. People at these institutions generally have more opportunities for the kind of research that will lead to additional opportunities. Therefore, candidates usually aim as high as possible in the choice of a first academic position.

Does this mean that a candidate who does not begin an academic career at a major research institution may never have a chance to be on the faculty of one? Of course not, but to do so can be very difficult. Particularly in the tight job market of recent years, candidates have taken the best positions they were offered, continued to do research, and, in some cases, moved to other institutions within a few years. They have been able to make these moves through visibility generated from research, publication, and participation in national scholarly or professional organizations. It is the case, however, that if an individual does not move to an institution or department of national reputation within the first few years of a career, whatever the form of appointment, he or she becomes increasingly less likely to do so. It does also happen that faculty members will decide to leave a tenured or tenure-track position to move to a more desirable location or to change careers entirely and take a non-faculty position, which will be discussed in Chapter 23, “Exploring the Expanded Job Market.”

Some movement is also possible between academic and nonacademic employers. This is particularly likely to be the case in professional schools, in which candidates may join the faculty at a senior level after achieving a distinguished record of accomplishment in the profession. Scientific and technical areas have also seen increasing movement between academic and industrial research settings.

However, transferability of credentials between academic and nonacademic settings varies greatly from field to field. It is a good idea to seek advice from senior individuals on both “sides” so that you do not make a major career move without being aware of its probable implications. You may need, for example, to learn how long scholars in your field can refrain from pursuing active research before they risk being unable to resume it with any credibility.

Academic Lives

The kind of position one gets, and at what institution, will have important ramifications for one’s life. Many, if not most, people seeking an academic appointment will be facing the possibility of a major relocation that will require reestablishing not only your professional life but also your personal life in an entirely new setting. In addition, as short-term contracts have become more common, young scholars may expect more than one major relocation. Research universities may demand research conducted at practically nonstop intensity, and careers in some fields may be tied to continuously obtaining new grants. Faculty at teaching-focused institutions may find that teaching and service consume much of their time, leaving them with few additional hours for their research and other priorities. Students at all types of institutions may expect to have access to you twenty-four hours a day/seven days a week via email and social media. The period between obtaining a tenure-track position and obtaining tenure requires constant juggling of priorities as it presents so many demands. Despite their heavy workloads, academics have more freedom to structure their own time than practically anyone else in the economy. For some people, this is the great advantage of the career path; for others, it is a source of stress.

Academics, like other people, establish long-term relationships, have children, buy houses, care for elderly parents, try to make time for hobbies and community service, and hope to have some retirement income. Since academics are particularly likely to bring work home, boundaries between work and the rest of life are often blurred. When you aspire to and accept an academic position, inevitably you’re planning the rest of your life as well.