5 ms·

Here's all you need to know about the greatest shame in Academia: >According to the most recent MLA jobs report, there were only 361 assistant professor tenure

Here's all you need to know about the greatest shame in Academia: >According to the most recent MLA jobs report, there were only 361 assistant professor tenure-track job openings in all fields of English literature in 2014-15. The number of Ph.D. recipients in English that year was 1,183. Many rejected candidates return to the job market year after year and compound the surplus. Now, this begs a much deeper, more heady discussion regarding priorities and values within the US Higher Education system. The question to consider is Does this out-of-whack-ratio mean we have too many English graduates or not enough English jobs? And - while you'd probably knee jerk to the former rather than the latter, I think I could make a compelling case to disagree. It's not that it's wrong to pursue a lifetime in English or Music, it's just very tough to realize that as a nation, the US has its priorities terribly fucked up and refuses to support even a decent standard of living and healthcare for those who would devote their lives to such pursuits. This should be in bold text on every student loan application in the Liberal Arts, and perhaps others as well. We don't need room after room of high minded PhDs talking Milton, but we do need PhDs to be taxpayers, and there are plenty of immigrants year after year that if English was a priority, it would get funding and infrastructure to support both the Educators and Students. Which, as we can see, isn't the case for now.

xaa 10y ago
I'm a grad student, so I'm sympathetic to these arguments, trust me. But I simply think there's no way around the fact that if you double the positions, you'll (at least) double the number of graduates. Assuming the faculty:grad-student ratio remains constant. It should be kept in mind that there are other jobs for PhD besides faculty. (Although I don't know about English; maybe editor, etc?) I have mostly made my peace with the fact that by going into academia you are trading money for some intangibles, like doing what you enjoy, flexible hours, etc. Anyone who gets a PhD without knowing the risks is...not very smart. I work in medical research. Trust me, it's not pleasant that total government spending on medical research for a year amounts to the cost of a few dozen bombers. Or that the Iraq War's cost could have funded all our research spending for something like 50 years. But at this point, pointing out how our societal decisions are irrational is like pointing out the sky is blue.
azernik 10y ago
In case it helps, the speaker of this piece seems to agree with you. The continuation of that quote is basically your argument, only he blames it on the universities - since they are working both sides of this labor market by employing the graduates that they churn out. > It gets worse. From 2008 to 2014, tenure-track English-department jobs declined 43 percent. This year there are, by my count, only 173 entry-level tenure-track job openings — fewer than half of the opportunities just two years ago. If history is any guide, there will be about nine times as many new Ph.D.s this year as there are jobs. One might think that the years-long plunge in employment would compel doctoral programs to reduce their numbers of candidates, but the opposite is happening. From the Great Recession to 2014, U.S. universities awarded 10 percent more English Ph.D.s. In the humanities as a whole, doctorates are up 12 percent. > Why? Why are professional humanists so indifferent to these people? Why do our nation’s English departments consistently accept several times as many graduate students as their bespoke job market can sustain? English departments are the only employers demanding the credentials that English doctoral programs produce. So why do we invite young scholars to spend an average of nearly 10 years grading papers, teaching classes, writing dissertations, and training for jobs that don’t actually exist? English departments do this because graduate students are the most important element of the academy’s polarized labor market. They confer departmental prestige. They justify the continuation of tenure lines, and they guarantee a labor surplus that provides the cheap, flexible labor that universities want.
- WalterBright 10y ago
  If the universities had fewer grad students in English, they'd need even fewer English professors.
  - elihu 10y ago
    Perhaps, but the work of teaching English to undergraduates (including many students who aren't planning to pursue a career in literary criticism) would remain.
  - kbenson 10y ago
    I think you have it backwards. If they had fewer grad students that supplied almost-free labor, they would have to employ more English teachers to fulfill those tasks, and raise the teacher to student ratio for English classes. English teachers don't just teach grad students, they teach English majors and just about every other student, as English is a core general education class for graduation in most cases.
learc83 10y ago
>...there are plenty of immigrants year after year that if English was a priority, it would get funding... English departments don't normally prepare their graduates teach English as a 2nd language. That's usually done by Applied Linguistics. Applied linguistics also doesn't have the employment problem English programs do. The job market is much better.
jseliger 10y ago
Yeah. I wrote about this obvious point too in "Universities treat adjuncts like they do because they can:" https://jakeseliger.com/2016/02/25/4791/ https://jakeseliger.com/2016/02/25/4791/
crystalmeph 10y ago
I'm not sure why you think it should be a priority for the nation (meaning the taxpayers) to support those who devote their lives to the study of literature. Do those pursuits pay off in some tangible or intangible form down the line that justifies the upfront, and very tangible, expenditure you want taken out of my paycheck? I'll agree that military spending is out of control, and that the welfare system in general needs to do better than cut people off past a certain point, but that doesn't mean we should pay for apartments for English majors with the money we're currently spending on bombs.
- dukeluke 10y ago
  It really depends on what we want to prioritize in our culture and country. If we want to prioritize profits and perpetual exponential growth, then it should be obvious that literature should not be prioritized. But if quality of life should be the focus of our country, then it should at least be considered.
  - maverick_iceman 10y ago
    You can prioritize whatever you want. What you can't do is impose your priorities on everyone else. Remember that country/culture is not a moral agent which has goals/priorities separate from individuals.
    - dukeluke 10y ago
      Of course. A culture is made of a bunch of individuals with a common method of communication. I disagree, though, that I can't impose my priorities on others. What makes you say I can't?
    - 6stringmerc 10y ago
      Culture is completely a Moral Agent of Society, and to argue otherwise is ridiculous. Nearly all Art is in close proximity to or a direct result of an internal belief system font of inspiration. How that comes to be expressed by default entails a Message, thus enter twining Morality and Art in ways that can not be separated from Individuals as members of Society. That's why arguments about separating Great Art from Shithead Artists is a constant conversation of "Is it okay..." among adults who care about such things.
jldugger 10y ago
> Does this out-of-whack-ratio mean we have too many English graduates or not enough English jobs? And - while you'd probably knee jerk to the former rather than the latter, I think I could make a compelling case to disagree. Well, that ratio is based on tenure track openings. One wonders how that number changes if you factor in adjunct lecturers somehow. Obviously there's a not a 1:1, but in service departments like that with little research budget, it'd be at least a feasible calculation.
smudgymcscmudge 10y ago
That quote implies that the only ambition for an English PhD is a professorship. If that's the case, how could that ever be sustainable?
flukus 10y ago
> there were only 361 assistant professor tenure-track job openings in all fields of English literature in 2014-15 You have to wonder how many of those jobs only exist to accomodate the current number of PHD's. The "real" number of job openings could be far lower.
mcguire 10y ago
I'm afraid I don't understand your last paragraph, but... The article also makes the argument that there are only 361 tenure track job openings because universities are temporary workers at beer low pay. That's a strong case for the conclusion of the previous paragraph.
aisofteng 10y ago
There's another explanation for "there are too many graduates", which is that universities increasingly give diplomas to people who don't deserve them, becoming diploma mills and collecting ever increasing tuition from too many students. I've taught at a university and felt the pressure to assign higher grades even though I felt I was being fair. The whole concept of aiming to give the same percentage of As, Bs, etc in each group of students is antithetical to the idea of a degree, and is one factor that led to my deciding to never teach again.

xaa 10y ago

I'm a grad student, so I'm sympathetic to these arguments, trust me. But I simply think there's no way around the fact that if you double the positions, you'll (at least) double the number of graduates. Assuming the faculty:grad-student ratio remains constant. It should be kept in mind that there are other jobs for PhD besides faculty. (Although I don't know about English; maybe editor, etc?) I have mostly made my peace with the fact that by going into academia you are trading money for some intangibles, like doing what you enjoy, flexible hours, etc. Anyone who gets a PhD without knowing the risks is...not very smart. I work in medical research. Trust me, it's not pleasant that total government spending on medical research for a year amounts to the cost of a few dozen bombers. Or that the Iraq War's cost could have funded all our research spending for something like 50 years. But at this point, pointing out how our societal decisions are irrational is like pointing out the sky is blue.

azernik 10y ago

In case it helps, the speaker of this piece seems to agree with you. The continuation of that quote is basically your argument, only he blames it on the universities - since they are working both sides of this labor market by employing the graduates that they churn out. > It gets worse. From 2008 to 2014, tenure-track English-department jobs declined 43 percent. This year there are, by my count, only 173 entry-level tenure-track job openings — fewer than half of the opportunities just two years ago. If history is any guide, there will be about nine times as many new Ph.D.s this year as there are jobs. One might think that the years-long plunge in employment would compel doctoral programs to reduce their numbers of candidates, but the opposite is happening. From the Great Recession to 2014, U.S. universities awarded 10 percent more English Ph.D.s. In the humanities as a whole, doctorates are up 12 percent. > Why? Why are professional humanists so indifferent to these people? Why do our nation’s English departments consistently accept several times as many graduate students as their bespoke job market can sustain? English departments are the only employers demanding the credentials that English doctoral programs produce. So why do we invite young scholars to spend an average of nearly 10 years grading papers, teaching classes, writing dissertations, and training for jobs that don’t actually exist? English departments do this because graduate students are the most important element of the academy’s polarized labor market. They confer departmental prestige. They justify the continuation of tenure lines, and they guarantee a labor surplus that provides the cheap, flexible labor that universities want.

WalterBright 10y ago
If the universities had fewer grad students in English, they'd need even fewer English professors.
- elihu 10y ago
  Perhaps, but the work of teaching English to undergraduates (including many students who aren't planning to pursue a career in literary criticism) would remain.
- kbenson 10y ago
  I think you have it backwards. If they had fewer grad students that supplied almost-free labor, they would have to employ more English teachers to fulfill those tasks, and raise the teacher to student ratio for English classes. English teachers don't just teach grad students, they teach English majors and just about every other student, as English is a core general education class for graduation in most cases.

learc83 10y ago

>...there are plenty of immigrants year after year that if English was a priority, it would get funding... English departments don't normally prepare their graduates teach English as a 2nd language. That's usually done by Applied Linguistics. Applied linguistics also doesn't have the employment problem English programs do. The job market is much better.

jseliger 10y ago

Yeah. I wrote about this obvious point too in "Universities treat adjuncts like they do because they can:" https://jakeseliger.com/2016/02/25/4791/ https://jakeseliger.com/2016/02/25/4791/

crystalmeph 10y ago

I'm not sure why you think it should be a priority for the nation (meaning the taxpayers) to support those who devote their lives to the study of literature. Do those pursuits pay off in some tangible or intangible form down the line that justifies the upfront, and very tangible, expenditure you want taken out of my paycheck? I'll agree that military spending is out of control, and that the welfare system in general needs to do better than cut people off past a certain point, but that doesn't mean we should pay for apartments for English majors with the money we're currently spending on bombs.

dukeluke 10y ago
It really depends on what we want to prioritize in our culture and country. If we want to prioritize profits and perpetual exponential growth, then it should be obvious that literature should not be prioritized. But if quality of life should be the focus of our country, then it should at least be considered.
- maverick_iceman 10y ago
  You can prioritize whatever you want. What you can't do is impose your priorities on everyone else. Remember that country/culture is not a moral agent which has goals/priorities separate from individuals.
  - dukeluke 10y ago
    Of course. A culture is made of a bunch of individuals with a common method of communication. I disagree, though, that I can't impose my priorities on others. What makes you say I can't?
  - 6stringmerc 10y ago
    Culture is completely a Moral Agent of Society, and to argue otherwise is ridiculous. Nearly all Art is in close proximity to or a direct result of an internal belief system font of inspiration. How that comes to be expressed by default entails a Message, thus enter twining Morality and Art in ways that can not be separated from Individuals as members of Society. That's why arguments about separating Great Art from Shithead Artists is a constant conversation of "Is it okay..." among adults who care about such things.

jldugger 10y ago

> Does this out-of-whack-ratio mean we have too many English graduates or not enough English jobs? And - while you'd probably knee jerk to the former rather than the latter, I think I could make a compelling case to disagree. Well, that ratio is based on tenure track openings. One wonders how that number changes if you factor in adjunct lecturers somehow. Obviously there's a not a 1:1, but in service departments like that with little research budget, it'd be at least a feasible calculation.

smudgymcscmudge 10y ago

That quote implies that the only ambition for an English PhD is a professorship. If that's the case, how could that ever be sustainable?

flukus 10y ago

> there were only 361 assistant professor tenure-track job openings in all fields of English literature in 2014-15 You have to wonder how many of those jobs only exist to accomodate the current number of PHD's. The "real" number of job openings could be far lower.

mcguire 10y ago

I'm afraid I don't understand your last paragraph, but... The article also makes the argument that there are only 361 tenure track job openings because universities are temporary workers at beer low pay. That's a strong case for the conclusion of the previous paragraph.

aisofteng 10y ago

There's another explanation for "there are too many graduates", which is that universities increasingly give diplomas to people who don't deserve them, becoming diploma mills and collecting ever increasing tuition from too many students. I've taught at a university and felt the pressure to assign higher grades even though I felt I was being fair. The whole concept of aiming to give the same percentage of As, Bs, etc in each group of students is antithetical to the idea of a degree, and is one factor that led to my deciding to never teach again.