The Philosophy Smoker

Campus Visits for Post-Docs?

2012-01-31T10:26:00.000-08:00

An anonymous commenter (whose comment I can't find right now*) asks about what campus visits for post-docs are like. There were a couple of replies in that thread, but nothing like the sort of lively discussion for which we are known far and wide. So I thought I'd go ahead and post a real post about the question.

There are, of course, (at least) two different kinds of post doctoral fellowship: your teaching post-doc, and your research post-doc, and the two kinds are likely to have different kinds of campus visit. But I don't know about this, since I've never been invited to campus to interview for a post-doc.

What say you, Smokers?

--Mr. Zero

*This was a little while ago, and it was posted in a thread that was mostly over. I meant to post a post about it at the time, but things got away from me. Then the person came back and asked to have a main post about it, and I meant to post about it then, but things got away from me again. Sorry. I hope this isn't too late to be helpful to that person.

The line starts here...

2012-01-29T14:07:00.000-08:00

Anon brings to our attention this gem:

UNIVERSITY OF NORTH TEXAS, DENTON, TX. Lecturer, Department of Philosophy and Religion Studies. The Department of Philosophy and Religion Studies invites applications for the position of lecturer. This is a 1-year position that carries a 4/4 teaching load. Salary competitive. Required qualifications: Earned Ph. D. in philosophy and a minimum of 5 years full-time university teaching experience. AOS: Modern Philosophy. AOC: Ancient Philosophy. Preferred qualifications: experience teaching epistemology, philosophy of mind, and philosophy of literature; scholarly record of interest in or support of the department’s long-standing and continuing focus on the history of philosophy; familiarity with some branch of environmental philosophy that complements the department’s strengths in this area.

Wow. That's some wish list. They want to hire you for one year, so they're not looking for someone who is TT. But they also want you to have PhD in hand and a minimum five years of full-time teaching experience. That's far more than most TT jobs require. So, ABDs and many freshly minted PhDs need not apply for this 4/4 delight in scenic Denton, Texas. (To be fair, I've never been to Denton. It might be really nice.) It kinda goes against the conventional wisdom that it's not an asset to be a serial VAP. You'd almost have to be one for this job. (I like the part about "earned PhD" too -- none of those Cracker Jack PhDs they give away, Bub!)

Curious.

~zombie

Distributive justice post

2012-01-28T04:48:00.000-08:00

I posted a rough draft of an entry about the principle of charity/impostor syndrome last night. I actually wanted to wait before posting it because I wasn't quite happy with the finished product.

Maybe it'll go up at a later date. So, those two of you who commented, that's why the post is gone.

Thanks especially for the comment that said something like: "No; don't worry. You and everyone else who writes for this blog is an impostor."

-- Jaded, Ph.D.

Those Were the Days

2012-01-27T07:56:00.001-08:00

I sort of miss the days when you could post little notes and messages on the jobs wiki: asking people how the search committee contacted them for an interview; saying that they contacted you, too; expressing disbelief that the search committee had really contacted the person; etc. The wiki has been a little less fun this year.

But seriously, I do kind of miss additional people being able to say that they were contacted (not for any particular rational reason I can identify). And now that I think of it, the listings used to keep track of the history of the search more clearly. It used to say when the listing was created, when it was switched to "applications acknowledged" or "first-round interviews" or whatever. Now it says when the changes were made, but not what the changes were. (Right?) I liked the old way of doing that better, too.

--Mr. Zero

The View From Your Office

2012-01-25T08:12:00.000-08:00

I think this one is going to be easier than the last one.

Taken at 11:00 AM, facing west.

Like last time, the first person to guess which school this is in comments wins the right to brag about it. Signed comments are preferred, although if you want to win without taking credit for it, I guess that's your right. Once somebody gets it, I'll announce the winner, confirm the campus, and credit the submitter.

Thanks again for all the submissions; we've got some nice views lined up—some of which are going to be substantially more difficult to guess than the ones we've seen so far. But it would be horrible to eventually run out, so don't by shy, Smokers. Let us look out your window.

Update: Lee Faber is the winner! The view is Notre Dame, submitted by Bradley Rettler. The toughest part about this one was ringing in first. Thanks for sharing your view, Bradley, and nice work, Lee.

Here's a wider view from the same window:

Thanks again for playing, and let's keep the views coming.

--Mr. Zero

A Note to Search Committees

2012-01-24T14:03:00.000-08:00

As campus-visit season gets into full swing and decision-making season is about to begin, I'd like to offer a small piece of advice to search committees.

We job candidates know when you interview us that you might not invite us to campus. We know when you invite us to campus that you might not offer us the job. That's fine. You don't have to invite us to campus if you interview us, and you don't have to offer us the job if you invite us to campus. We'd love it if you did, obviously, but we know you don't have to. We know you don't owe us a job.

But that doesn't mean you don't owe us anything. What you owe to us is a nice note that thanks us for our time and wishes us well. You owe it to us to communicate with us one last time after the interview or campus visit. You owe it to us to let us know, from you, that we didn't get the job. You owe it to us even if we already found out, or will eventually.

Because the people you interview are people. And they traveled to Washington, DC to meet with you; or else they took the time to get together with you over Skype or on the phone; they invested time and energy into preparing for the interview, researching your school, your department, and their potential colleagues; maybe they even traveled to your town to meet with you and your colleagues and your administration and attempt to win you over with a presentation or two. And they did this because you invited them to do it—because you contacted them and said you wanted to interview them. Because you expressed to them that you were interested in them. And that goes quadruple for the people you invite to campus.

That means you owe something to the people you interview. You owe them courtesy. You don't owe them a job, but you owe them thanks for doing those things, which they did at your request and invitation. And then you owe it to them to wish them well.

--Mr. Zero

APA Eastern Meeting Dates Changed

2012-01-20T08:00:00.000-08:00

You probably already heard about this, but the APA has agreed to try moving the Eastern APA meeting to the end of the first full week in January for the 2015/16 academic year. I think this is good news, whether or not it ultimately works out. It's good to try new things.

One question I have is, what are they going to do for the 2016/17 academic year? Suppose the first full week in January doesn't work out. Suppose that's a really bad time to have the meeting. Since Eastern APA meetings have to be scheduled years in advance, does that mean we'll be stuck with the early January meeting time until 2018 or 2019? Or are they going to try a range of dates over the next several years? I think they should try a range of dates.

In a related note, our old friend Chris Alen Sula sent me an email last night, saying,

You may have seen the recent APA announcement about the Eastern APA date effective 2015/16. When I looked at the crosstab results at http://www.apaonline.org/APAOnline/Eastern_Division/Eastern_Division_Meeting_Survey_Results.aspx, I noticed there was also data about the question of whether in-person interviews should be a primary function of the Eastern APA meeting, with responses broken out between regular, student, and international members. With that question, more than all the others, I noticed a difference in the pattern of responses among these three groups.

I re-expressed the values as percentages for each group and visualized them [in the chart below]:

This is interesting. It seems that a lot of people don't care whether job interviews are a primary function of the Eastern meeting, but you are significantly more likely to think job interviews should be a primary function if you're not a student. Hmmm.

Many thanks to Dr. Sula.

--Mr. Zero

The View From Your Window

2012-01-19T05:50:00.000-08:00

Here we have two submissions from the same place. The first was taken last year late in the Fall; the second was taken at 10:30 yesterday morning.

I like the idea of turning it into a contest, so the first person to guess which school this is in comments wins... uh... nothing, other than bragging rights. Signed comments are preferred for this, although I don't know what kind of a sick person would submit a photo in order to then win a contest like this, anonymously. If somebody gets it, I'll announce the winner, and edit the post here to credit the submitters.

Thanks for all the submissions so far; we've got some nice ones coming down the pike. Keep 'em coming, Smokers.

Update: Carissa wins the contest. Nice work, Carissa. The photos are of Simon Fraser University, Burnaby B.C. The first was submitted by Holly Andersen, and is taken from her office. The second was submitted by Endre Begby and is taken from Philosophy Department Seminar Room, 10:30 AM. Thanks!

--Mr. Zero

The View From Your Window

2012-01-18T07:49:00.000-08:00

My favorite thing about Andrew Sullivan's blog, the Daily Dish, is the "view from your window" series. I was thinking it would be a good thing for the Smoker to rip that idea off.

So I'd like to invite Smokers to take pictures from your windows and send 'em in. Submissions should include a photo of the view from your window (obvs.), the name of the school (I'm assuming most submissions will be from windows on campus, though that's not a requirement), the city, state/province (or equivalent), country (if other than US or Canada), and what time it was when the photo was taken. I'll try to post them all, but I'll also try to space them out a little (so don't worry if yours doesn't show up right away). Let's see your views, Smokers.

DOUBLE UPDATE: Oh yeah, send 'em here: "zero.mrr at gmail.com" (In the original update, I put the email address between brackets, because I am dumb. Sorry.

(The photo above is stolen from here, and is the view from a window the Ginkgo Reading Room, Olin Library, Washington University, St. Louis.)'

--Mr. Zero

Peer Review

2012-01-17T10:43:00.000-08:00

I realize that this isn't exactly timely, but who has time to put up posts in a timely manner? Not me. (I hope to have an untimely post on Coyne's hard determinism later in the week, too.) Anyways, via Leiter, I learn of this prediction of the demise of peer-reviewed models of academic publishing. (Or is it an attack? Hard to tell.) According to Aaron J. Barlow, associate professor of English at a CUNY college, "Blind peer review is dead. It just doesn’t know it yet."

Barlow argued that the traditional system of blind peer review -- in which submissions are sent off to reviewers, whose judgments then determine whether papers are accepted, with no direct communication with authors -- had serious problems with fairness. He said that the system rewards "conformity" and allows for considerable bias.

He described a recent experience in which he was recruited by "a prestigious venue" to review a paper that related in some ways to research he had done. Barlow's work wasn't mentioned anywhere in the piece. Barlow said he realized that the journal editor figured Barlow would be annoyed by the omission. And although he was, Barlow said he didn't feel assigning the piece to him was fair to the author. "It was a set-up. The editor didn't want a positive review, so the burden of rejection was passed on to someone the author would not know."

I agree that this sort of thing shouldn't happen, and that the editor was behaving inappropriately. (The editor's behavior is also extremely strange. Correct me if I'm wrong, but editors typically have a lot of discretion concerning submissions, and if the editor thought that the paper wasn't good enough for inclusion in the journal or didn't think it would be a topical or stylistic fit, or just didn't want to devote the pages to it, she has the freedom to reject the paper all by herself. It's not as though she is obligated to ensure that every submission is refereed.)

But I don't agree that this incident is an indictment of anonymous refereeing, or that even reveals any problem of any kind with blind peer-review procedures as such. The only connection between what this editor has done and the institution of blind review is that there has to be such a thing as blind review in order for an unscrupulous editor to employ it in bad faith.

The way I see it, there are at least three important reasons to retain double- (or triple-) anonymous (peer) refereeing in some form:

1. The presence of peer reviewed journals and presses acts as a gatekeeper. There's a huge amount of material out there, and it is helpful to have other people to do the work of figuring out which stuff is worth reading. There would be a lot more material out there if we went to an all self-publish model in which there were no gatekeepers.

Also, this is a great deal of help to us unknowns. The only reason why anybody has ever read my work is because I published it somewhere. (Or because I submitted it to them in a way that caused them to have a professional obligation to read it.) Somebody once cited my work, and I am absolutely positive that this would never have happened if it weren't for the journal I published it in.

2. The work is improved by the editorial process. I've had papers accepted "as is" only a couple of times. The rest of the time the papers were conditionally accepted if I could make certain changes. Sometimes these were suggested by the referees; others they were insisted upon by the editor operating independently of the referees. In each such case, the changes were worthwhile and made the paper much better.

To be fair, Barlow acknowledges this:

"I love the editorial process" when comments result in a piece becoming better, he said, and digital publishing allows this to happen easily. But traditional peer review simply delays publication and leaves decision-making "in the dark."

But Barlow is wrong about the darkness. The darkness is not bad. It is the key to everything:

3. The anonymity of blind review procedures are extremely important. They are the only way to protect authors from all sorts of cognitive biases. Any suggestion that there should be less anonymity than there is now is hopelessly naive. There should be a lot more anonymity, not less.

There's also a strange reference to "guessing about how to handle a 'revise and resubmit' letter." I've had some R&Rs. As a referee, I've handed out some R&Rs. A lot of my friends have had R&Rs. I've never heard of an R&R where you would have to guess about what to do. You get an R&R because the editor believes in the paper and thinks that, with a little work, it would be worth publishing. It doesn't make any sense for an editor to make the author guess about what she should do. And in every case I've ever heard of, the editor has done the sensible thing and just explained what to do.

And even if the editor engaged in the bizarre practice of making the author guess about what revisions she was asking for, it still wouldn't constitute an objection to the practice of anonymous peer review as such. It would constitute an objection to this kooky editor's oddball R&Rs.

Long live anonymous peer review.

--Mr. Zero

Adjuncting

2012-01-13T07:01:00.000-08:00

Anon 4:18 asks:

Would it be possible to have a thread on adjuncting?

Sure.

Here are some things I'd like to know [enumerated for ease of reference]:

1. How easy is it to obtain an adjuncting job?

2. How easy is it to obtain an adjuncting job that's something like fulltime?

3. With health insurance?

4. How easy is it to obtain an adjuncting job in one's home town?

5. How does one get such a job? I sort of have the idea that you just email the department chair at a particular institution, but maybe that's wrong.

I know some smokers know something about adjuncting that would be helpful to those of us who know very little, and may need to do adjuncting work in the very near future. Maybe a thread on it would be helpful to some of us.

I'm not an expert, but I have opinions about several of these questions:

1. It depends. They're normally not very competitive, though. Your biggest obstacle is probably availability.

2. Not possible. If it were a full time position, it would not be an adjunct position. In order to adjunct full time, you're going to need to have two or three jobs.

3. No.

4. Depends on the home town.

5. Probably emailing the department chair is the best way. It couldn't hurt.

--Mr. Zero

Flap your wings

2012-01-12T06:35:00.000-08:00

Anon 4:12 requested a thread on fly-out advice. Fine idea, as some of you are no doubt preparing for them. The campus visit is a strange beast, a two-day (more or less) gauntlet of job interviews and social calls, with some harrowing, high pressure philosophy thrown in. You'll meet with various deans, and lots of faculty, and students. You'll be continuously shuttled from one thing to the next, with very little down time in between. You'll be dined (not often wined -- many university budgets don't permit putting alcohol on the tab) more often than you can bear. The worst of the meals is breakfast -- to my mind, if you want to know what kind of colleague someone might be, don't evaluate them before they've had caffeine. (Advice: if your hotel room has a coffee maker, use it, even if it makes lousy coffee, just for the medicinal benefits.) You might give a talk, you might be asked to do a teaching demo. Or both.

The campus visit is also an opportunity to learn about the school. You can get a sense of the campus culture, and of the department. Don't think like someone who is desperate to get a job, any job, but rather like someone who might be sold on this particular job. Hopefully, the people you're interacting with are of a mind to sell you. Ask questions about the students, about campus life, about what it's like to live there. You will need to exhibit at least minimal chit-chat skills, because you'll be doing lots of it while people are walking you around campus, driving you to the airport or restaurants, etc. A five minute walk becomes much longer when filled with awkward silence.

Anon asks specifically about the job talk:

Is there any circumstance in which it's appropriate to give your job talk on the paper you gave as a writing sample? I work in a somewhat technical and obscure area, and am interviewing for an open job. And I sent my most accessible paper as a writing sample. And while I'm pretty good at explaining my technical stuff to a non-tech audience, I know the writing sample talk goes down a storm with varied audiences. But I'm a few years post-doc, and I don't want them to think I only have one paper!

You want your job talk to be something you know inside and out, and something you're comfortable presenting. If that's your writing sample, or a variation thereof, I'd say use it. (For one thing, it's likely only the SC read your writing sample, so for most of the audience, it's going to be new.) You certainly don't want to try out new material. (Although as a grad student, I saw a job candidate deflect many, many questions during a job talk by saying he needed to think about the issue, and come back to it. He didn't, of course, come back to those many questions during the talk. He also got the job, although he wasn't the first choice.) If you plan to use powerpoint or some such, ask in advance what tech will be available, and be prepared to not use it, if something fails. You have far more control, in some cases, over the content of your job talk than over the content of a teaching demo. I had one campus visit where I was assigned to teach half of a particular existing class. It was a course that was completely outside my AOS/AOC, and outside the AOS/AOC of the job ad. The SC chose it, so far as I can tell, because it was convenient -- the prof was willing to give up half of his class for the demo. But it was hellish for me, to come in during the second half of a class, try to bring the topic around to something I was able to teach well, and have only about 30 minutes to do it. (I didn't get that job.)

Take granola bars and portable snacks, especially if you have dietary restrictions. The days are really long, and being hungry makes you cranky. Have at least two pairs of good pants, especially if you're going to a wintry clime where the odds of getting mud/snow/salt on your pants are high. It's a short trip, so take a carry-on so nothing gets lost in transit. Be polite. Practice a firm but not crushing handshake -- you'll be shaking lots of hands. Be very nice to the department secretary/admin assistant. They know where the bodies are kept.

Jump in with fly-out questions, advice, or whatever.

~zombie

Scarcity, Gettability, and Resentment

2012-01-10T08:43:00.000-08:00

From an anonymous SC member, on the difficulties they also face:

As I read through the comment threads of various posts, I notice an occasional topic that comes up is interviewers at lower ranked school being resentful toward highly qualified candidates. I have on occasion seen this given as an explanation for why some exceptionally well qualified person did not get an interview, on-campus or offer. There is a dimension to this which seems to never be fully appreciated: on-campus interview resources are quite scarce. We cannot bring out more than four people. If we make an offer to someone, and they turn us down, then we have only the remaining three to choose from, then two, then one, then none. And if we do not hire anyone, it means we will probably lose the line, and have a reduced chance of obtaining or retaining lines in the future. This means that we simply cannot afford to fill the short list with the people we want the most; we must have fallbacks that we can be fairly confident will accept an offer. Despite our efforts to rule out people who are utterly impossible for us to get, every search I've participated in since my hire has led to an offer that was refused. Every. Single. One. In each case, we had eliminated even better people on the assumption that they could not be had, and still we overreached. In every case the candidate we made the first offer to made a great show of how excited they were by our job, until they had another offer in hand (or, in one case, used our offer to negotiate for better pay from the place they preferred).

We want excellent people. We want this very much. But we also don't want to lose the line and thereby initiate a slow death-spiral for our department. I don't want to deny that there are occasionally tinges of resentment that some committee members express toward some specific candidates, but my impression is that this is far less the case than one might think. The market will segment itself in any case, and so we make that process more efficient by not wasting people's time on interaction that won't go anywhere in any case, on candidates who do not *need* any help from us.

This year, I tried an experiment. Instead of simply viewing the candidates from the perspective of my own judgments of desirability, I made a mechanical ranking of them according to the Leiter number of their pedigree, and then tried to come up with a comparable ranking for jobs, using Leiter ranking, and when that gives out, US News ranking. All very imprecise of course, but I was merely trying to measure a collective fantasy anyway. Then I paired off candidates to jobs, working from the top down. We had 70 applicants for our position. Once I eliminated both people whose AOS/AOC didn't match what we were looking for anyway, and people who would take better offers elsewhere, the list reduced to six candidates. Since it seemed silly to go to the APA for only six interviews, we added three to the list, but these were therefore people I had already judged to be "ungettable." I should clarify that this procedure did not control our list, but the other members of the committee ended up with almost exactly the same list using non-mechanical criteria. While at the APA, one of these three indicated that she already had stellar on-campus interviews lined up and wasn't really interested in us anymore; another one has already appeared in an online announcement as giving a talk at one of the stellar hiring departments. We knew that interviewing them was a waste of time, and indeed it was. However, I'm sure that some stars we didn't even interview at the APA will conclude that we "resent" them or feel "threatened" by them. Honestly, we don't. We just can't afford to waste the resources on recruiting them. If we have done anything wrong over the years, it is overreach, because hope springs eternal.

Yes. Hope does spring eternal.

-- JD

In Answer to Spiros's Question...

2012-01-05T10:06:00.000-08:00

Spiros asks:

I was just getting my APA receipts organized. I'll submit them next week to my University, and in due course I'll get reimbursed for nearly every dollar I spent on the APA Eastern. But I have to say that the grand sum is pretty staggering, considering what one gets in return.

Unless one happens to live close enough to DC to not need to fly, the cost for most of getting to the conference and staying in the conference hotel has to be roughly $1000. How do graduate students and non-TT slave-wage earners who don't live on the East Coast afford it?

What we do is, we scrimp; we find less-expensive alternatives to the conference hotel; we eat as cheaply as we can; and we put up blog posts and comments in which we point out what a bunch of inhumane bullshit the current set of hiring procedures are and in which we propose more humane, less bullshitty alternatives, for which we are then derided as entitled whiners who are unwilling to do what it takes to get a job in philosophy.

--Mr. Zero

How to Deal (Or Something Like That)

2012-01-04T08:14:00.000-08:00

I spent some time at the APA meeting thinking about whether I would have been enjoying myself if I had been there without any interviews. I continue to think that going to the E-APA without interviews is a waste of time and money, but some people disagreed. Some of these people said that you should go because going will cause you learn to deal with rejection; or else not going means you can't deal with rejection, and if you can't deal with rejection you're some kind of weakling who doesn't belong in this line of work. Or something. I continue to think that, whatever my problem is, it's not that I'm a weakling or that I otherwise can't deal with rejection. I think that anon 12:11 got it exactly right:

Those who are framing the issue in terms of "dealing with rejection" are completely missing the point.

If I send out 100 applications, get 99 PFOs, and 1 job; then I would be ecstatic. As a job market candidate, what I'm most concerned about is not avoiding or minimizing rejection; rather, I'm most concerned about securing the opportunity to do professionally the teaching and research I've been trained to do for the past ten years of my life. That's completely different from the experience of having a paper rejected.

There are candidates who had the misfortune of going on the market for the first time back when things blew up in 2008. These are people who know how to persevere. Every year they publish or otherwise further their research; they design and teach new courses to improve their teaching portfolios; they apply for jobs; sometimes they get interviews, sometimes they don't. These are people who are used to getting knocked down, and they know how to get back up. Telling those candidates that they "need to learn how to deal with rejection" is incredibly fucked-up and condescending.

This resonated with me because I've been on the market since before things blew up in '08. I've consequently been rejected hundreds of times. Almost all the jobs I've ever applied for have declined to interview me; almost all the search committees who did interview me took a pass. Including all the tenure-track ones. In that time I've had a lot of chances to really hone my skills. I don't want to brag, but I have gotten to be a pretty awesome rejection-dealer. I go out every year, get no offers, and I'm ready to try again next time. Dealing with rejection is not my problem.*

And so I feel qualified to say that one thing that I really do find helpful in dealing with rejection is this: don't make things harder on yourself than they need to be. Don't make rejection harder to deal with than it already is. If staying away from the APA makes it easier (or possible) for you to be ready to attack the market again in the spring, then you should stay away without feeling like the desire to do so is evidence of some character flaw. Do whatever you need to do.

Of course, maybe staying away from the APA doesn't help you. Maybe you get energized by the fog of misery, stress, and failure. Maybe it just doesn't matter to you. That's possible. And if that describes you, by all means feel free to ignore my advice. Do what you want. But I find the APA-with-no-interview experience to be intensely miserable, and I don't see the point in putting yourself through an intensely miserable experience just to prove that you can handle it.

--Mr. Zero

*The rejections themselves are.

Post-Game Show

2012-01-01T15:51:00.000-08:00

I've got a lot on my plate this week, so I won't have much time to post any of my own interesting thoughts until after some of these Bowl games are over. But I wanted to register my agreement with the observations of anonymous 1:50, who writes:

I assume there will be a post game thread [indeed], but in the spirit of thread hijacking and impatience, I was curious about trends those on the market for several years noticed. It seemed to me that slightly fewer schools did APA interviews, and even even fewer participated in the smoker. (Both nights it seemed like there were very few candidates at tables)

But it was hard for me to get a handle on overall numbers, especially because I didn't have any comparison class.

Thoughts?

It did seem to me that there were fewer departments interviewing at the conference this year; the ballroom seemed pretty sparsely populated, at least in comparison to past years. And it also seemed to me that there were a lot fewer departments with tables at the Smoker--and that several of the departments who did have tables were not interviewing. Additionally, it seemed to me that there were comparatively more applicants using the placement service than two years ago (which is the most recent year I know anything about, since I skipped Boston last year). I'm not sure what to make of this last thing.

Also, I wanted to express my gratitude to the Smokers who left suggestions in the "Things to Do" thread. I was able to put together a pretty nice sightseeing day on the basis of your suggestions. Thanks!

--Mr. Zero

Dispatch from the APA

2011-12-28T09:14:00.000-08:00

An anonymous Smoker writes with the following stories:

Here were my first two hours at the APA:

1) As I approach the registration desk, the first thing I see is a prominent philosopher whose book is the subject of an author meets critics session telling the person at the desk that the program has the title of her book wrong. She tells the person at the desk that the mistake is "embarassing".

2) In front of me is a philosopher who pre-registered on November 11th. His credit card was set to expire on 12/1. The APA waited until December to run his credit card and thus was not able to proces his payment. The woman at registration tells him "Just because you submitted your registration on November 11 does not mean that we ran your credit card on November 11." Okay, fair enough, but it really took you (at least) three weeks? What is more, this philosopher, realizing that there might be a problem actuallly e-mailed the APA to let them know that his credit card was set to expire in December. Apparently, they sent him back an e-mail saying that everything was fine, even though it was not.

3) Having registered for the conference, I headed down to placement services to register there. There were three men sitting in front of computers registering people. Two of them were only serving candidates who had pre-registered and one was there for candidates who were registering on site. Virtually no one in line had pre-registered. Now I understand setting aside a couple computers for those who pre-registered but if there was no one there who had pre-registered, you would think they would help those of us who were registering on site until someone who pre-registered showed up. But no. These two men sat there engaging in idle chit chat while the line for on-site registration stretched around the corner. Only one of three terminals was being used. The visual was so comical that I thought about taking a picture and sending it to fail blog.

4) After I registered with placement services, I headed to a session, which was scheduled for 6:30. Someone (presumably from the APA) put a sign on the door saying that the session would start at 7:15. This resulted in one of the speakers showing up 45 minutes late.

By themselves, any one of these errors are the kinds of things you expect at any large event. But how could I witness all of these things in my first two horus at the conference and not conclude that the APA is incompetent?

Indeed.

--Mr. Zero

Things to Do in the District

2011-12-26T17:10:00.000-08:00

Tips for cool things to see, restaurants, places to avoid, etc? I've been to Washington before, but it was a long time ago and I didn't have much time to spend. My advice would not be useful to anyone who'd so much as looked at a map of the place. What should people do while they're there?

--Mr. Zero

Hallelujah! Holy Shit! Where's the Tylenol?

2011-12-25T13:15:00.000-08:00

Merry "an asshole in his bathrobe, emptying a chemical toilet into my sewer" Day from all of us at the Philosophy Smoker.

--Mr. Zero

If You Don't Have Interviews, Don't Go

2011-12-20T09:43:00.000-08:00

I strongly agree with the advice of anon 9:19, here:

If you have no interviews and are on the market, I _highly_ advise you to avoid the Smoker and the APA. If you've already bought tickets, just let the money go. There is no pain like being interviewless at the APA (if you're on the market).

I may have written about this before, but I went to the E-APA with no interviews my first year out. It was aggressively terrible. I was surrounded by friends who had interviews, who were acutely and intensely stressed out about doing well in their interviews. I, on the other hand, was experiencing a much deeper, existential anxiety. I felt like a ghost. Everything was going on around me, but I couldn't touch it. My friends could at least go some distance toward managing their stress by preparing for their interviews; I had nothing.

Sometimes people say that you should go once just to get a taste of the meat-market atmosphere without the pressure of being involved. That's possible. But I don't think it's worth it, and if you're going to do it, you should do it before you're on the market at all. By the time you're on the market, it's definitely not worth it.

--Mr. Zero

I'm crying in my... beer?

2011-12-19T14:12:00.000-08:00

Seems like it's time to wallow (oh, you have interviews? must be nice...). For anyone else in the same boat, here are the steps I recommend:

Step 1: Pick you poison.

Vodka? What, so you can drink like a freshman, vomit and piss on that car as you're stumbling back home?

Beer? Seems like a better choice - a good variety for any occasion.

Me Tonight: Whiskey. More specifically: Bourbon.

Step 2: Assess your mood.

Need your body to feel the pain emanating from your heart? Visit with your friend Evan Williams (or his slightly more alcoholic neighbor Ezra Brooks). After all, he helped get you through those years of hard work that are not paying off.

Perhaps that hard work should pay off and what you need is consolation. A Woodford Reserve or Knob Creek -- apparently any bourbon with a bottle shaped like an oversized flask. The pain here comes in your wallet, but hey, you don't need to pay for that hotel room at the APA.

Tonight: I don't need pity and I don't need pain. Just a solid, stalwart drink to get proper perspective. Perhaps a Wild Turkey Rye. Or maybe I'll skip the rye and go with the wheated oak-heavy W.L. Weller. Ultimately, I'm actually doing well. It's mainly this whole 'job security' thing that rears it's ugly head every year.. just in time for Christmas!

Step 3: Take you medicine.

Comments on appropriate job market drinks or drinking away your problems are welcome.

-- Second Suitor

A bunch of questions for y'all that I should have posted a long time ago but didn't because I'm not as good at blogging as I used to be

2011-12-17T11:26:00.000-08:00

From Prof. Lurker, about advisors and the APA:

Is it perceived as either (a) a moral norm or (b) an important convention that the supervisors of job seekers be there at the Eastern APA for moral support, networking help etc.? I've done so in the past, but felt completely useless -- so far, no one has ever needed my advice or a shoulder to cry on at that stage, and I'm not very good at the networking-with-strangers stuff. (People I actually know at the hiring schools I will email well before then.) So, what are your experiences and perceptions? As a job seeker, have you found it helpful or reassuring to have your advisor there? Is there a perception that a student whose advisor isn't there is being less enthusiastically supported? On the simplifying assumption that it's otherwise a pointless inconvenience and waste of money, am I still obliged to go?

FemFilosofer on women's interview attire:

I 've always been amused by the conversations on the blog about interview attire, especially those about women's interview attire. What I've learned from these conversations is that 1) I should wear a suit, 2) I should not wear a suit; a) I should wear heels, b) I should not wear heels; *) I should wear makeup, **) I should not wear makeup. In addition, riding in elevators with interviewees (lucky bastards) at the APA while they discuss the merits of the red tie with the sailboats versus the blue tie with the fleur de lis has become somewhat of a spectator sport for me. I'm probably going to turn all of these things into an article someday. But for now, here's a link to a fun article on Jezebel about the Duke Women Law Student Association. It might be heartening to know that even though the Smoker conversations test my mind's ability to handle contradictions, no one has ever (to my knowledge) informed the philosophy dudettes to get proper bra fittings before the APA. Be heartened, philosophers. We're not the craziest of the crazies.

http://jezebel.com/5861542/the-most-insane-job+interview-tips-ever.

And, for full disclosure, my preferred interview attire is a skirt and a cardigan. But you won't find me in an elevator at the APA squirming about my decision to wear grey tights instead of black ones.

Perhaps too late, but BR asks and my answer is that you should e-mail the department):

Say that in between the time when an application is due (e.g. Nov. 4, Nov. 15, or Dec. 1 etc.) and the time when the committee makes a decision about APA interviews (December?) one gets a paper accepted for publication (or some other significant thing happens). What should one do? Should one email the department and ask to have their dossier updated?

Okay. I'll try to be better. See y'all at the APA.

--JD

pdf annotator/organizer

2011-12-16T10:27:00.000-08:00

Amidst being stressed or depressed, have any thoughts on the best way to organize your pdfs and take notes? Have a good system?

I'm playing with Mendeley and ReadCube. I like how both let me collect, search, highlight & take notes (I tend to like the note taking on ReadCube better - I don't like the yellow quote bubble that you have to click on to read the notes). Both seem to have some issues as reference managers, though Mendeley seems to win here.

Any decided preferences? Other program suggestions?

--Second Suitor

ps Grahl pdf annotator served me well letting me write on the pdf if you have a tablet pc (but it's not free).

Our Official Mascot

2011-12-14T07:42:00.001-08:00

--Mr. Zero

Interview Successes

2011-12-13T12:33:00.000-08:00

Although I would hate to derail the amusing and enlightening discussion of fucked-up interview experiences that is now ongoing, I do want to start a parallel discussion of interviews that did not go poorly. In this thread, we tell stories about interviews we nailed.^*

Unfortunately, I don't have any (true) story about the time I hit it out of the park, but I have had a couple of interviews that went well enough that I didn't think it was crazy to imagine that I'd get the flyout or the offer. One interview with a Ph.D.-granting department focused on my research (of course). They said they wanted to talk about my writing sample, but what they really wanted to talk about were all the deeper issues that didn't specifically come up in my writing sample but which were hiding slightly under the surface. All the assumptions you have to make in order to get to the point where my question comes up. So, if my writing sample was a defense of utilitarianism from the Organ Harvest objection (it wasn't), they wanted to talk about whether there was any such thing as moral permissibility, in the first place, at all. The nice thing about it is that I was familiar with these deeper issues, thought they were really interesting, had thought about them a lot, and had a near-final draft of a paper in which I respond to exactly the arguments they were pushing. And so I was able to present what I considered to be cogent, well-thought-out responses to their questions. (The paper has since come out in a pretty good journal.) I thought the discussion went really well, and I was really bummed when I didn't get the on-campus. I'm still not sure what, if anything, I did wrong there. In all honesty, I'm not sure I have it in me to give a better interview than that.

--Mr. Zero

^*I was trying to think of what the opposite of a "fuck-up" is, and it seemed that it would have to be `fuck-down.' But I didn't think that a post called "Interview Fuck-Downs" would attract the kind of attention I was looking for. So I went with the more pedestrian 'successes' as a clearer alternative.

Interview Fuckups

2011-12-12T10:09:00.000-08:00

I thought it might be good to have a thread on the theme of "what not to do in your interviews," where we could share our "here's how I committed a life-altering fuck-up in a job interview" stories.

Here's one of mine: I was once asked a question about what challenges I have faced in my teaching and how I have met those challenges. The answer I was going for had to do with how some of my students are, sadly, not prepared for college-level work, and I have had to develop strategies for getting these people up to speed in a way that will also be valuable to those students who are better prepared. But the answer I gave implied that the main challenge I face is that my students are total dumbasses who suck, and I have dealt with this challenge by treating them as condescendingly as possible. (This is somewhat of an exaggeration. But not that much.) As I was answering this question, I was aware that I was in the process of blowing the interview. I literally had the thought, "because of this answer I am now giving--because of the sentence I am now uttering--I will not get this job." But it was too late; I was already giving the answer. To give a better answer, it seemed to me, I would have had to stop in the middle of what I was saying--in the middle of the then-current sentence--and start over. I considered doing it, but didn't think I could pull it off.

How to avoid this kind of stuff? I don't know, exactly. One thing is to try to anticipate what questions you'll get, and prepare answers to them in advance, and try to get ones that don't make you seem like a racist asshole. Our annual "interview Rehash" has been very helpful to me over the years in this regard. But, for me, anyway, there is no substitute for experience. My interviewing has gotten progressively better over time, as I've gotten more interviews under my belt.

Does anybody have any fuckup stories they wouldn't mind sharing? Does anybody know a better way to get good?

--Mr. Zero

Award for Best Ad of the Year

2011-12-09T12:17:00.000-08:00

...goes to #120 in JFP #192W, which reads as follows:

120. CONTRACT FACULTY POSITION/PHILOSOPHY. DEPARTMENT OF PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGIOUS STUDIES. The Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies invites applications for a one-year, non-renewable contract faculty position available August 17, 2012. 4-4 teaching load, usually two preparations per semester. AOS or AOC: Ethics. Responsibilities: teaching Ethics and possibly Introduction to Philosophy and additional upper level courses; providing service to the department as needed. Minimum qualifications: ABD in Philosophy; ability to teach well Introduction to Ethics. Preferred qualifications: earned doctorate in Philosophy prior to start date; competency in one or more of the following: aesthetics, American philosophy, African American philosophy, critical race theory, queer theory, indigenous philosophy, women and gender studies, animal ethics, or other area of study concerning underrepresented populations; experience in mentoring non-majority students, inclusive pedagogy, and diversity policy issues. The department highly values scholarly teachers, so candidates should be prepared to demonstrate a passion for, and innovation in, the classroom. Send curriculum vitae, graduate school transcripts, three letters of recommendation, a writing sample, a brief statement of teaching philosophy, and a brief statement of research interests to: AnnMarie Adams, Dept. Administrator, Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies, Ball State University, Muncie, IN 47306, or via email to: philrelst@bsu.edu. Electronic submission is strongly preferred. Review of applications will begin immediately and will continue until the position is filled. (www.bsu.edu/philosophy) The department of Philosophy and Religious Studies seeks to attract an active, culturally and academically diverse faculty of the highest caliber. Ball State University is an equal opportunity, affirmative action employer and is strongly and actively committed to diversity within its community. Therefore, we especially encourage applications from candidates that would contribute to this commitment. (192W); posted: 12/9/2011

It doesn't identify the school except in passing when it gives the mailing address. They literally forgot to say what school it is--it's only by accident that it includes the information at all.

--Mr Zero

Gentlemen and women, start your engines

2011-12-06T09:12:00.000-08:00

I hope that many of you are getting good news about interviews in the coming days. And those of you who haven't done the interview thing before (and perhaps those of you who have) may have some questions about what to expect, how to prepare, how not to ruin ChristmaHannuKwanzaa for your families, etc.

This is advice from an historian, but it's quite useful and applicable to APA: http://edgeofthewest.wordpress.com/2008/12/02/aha-interviews-redux/

This from last year's week of dread Smoker:

http://philosophysmoker.blogspot.com/2010/11/interview-rehash-3.html

Mary Sies' extremely useful article at IHE:

http://www.insidehighered.com/advice/2009/12/02/sies

And this thread from LR:

http://leiterreports.typepad.com/blog/2008/04/how-to-best-pre.html

What worked for me: create a master list of questions, and write a response. For me, knowing the answer makes it far easier to extemporise on the spot. (I do the same thing prepping for class. I write extensive notes, but only glance at them for prompts.) You can't take your notes with you to an in-person interview (one of the fringes of a phone interview is that you can have all your notes and papers in front of you), so you have to know what you're going to say.

Mundane advice: When you get the call (or email), you will likely be asked to choose among several interview times. It's easier to handle this question by email, but if by phone, you'll need to have your calendar handy to write down the appointment (and to make sure you don't have any scheduling conflicts). This seems obvious, but the first time I got "the call," I had already concluded that I was not getting any interviews, and was completely unprepared and had to run around my house trying to get it together. This is much harder to do when your head is buzzing loudly from that massive adrenaline rush you just experienced. You may be asked if you have any questions. One question you should ask is "Who will I be meeting with?" Get their names. (Later, look them up. Read something they've written that's of interest to you. You'll have time on the plane ride to DC). Ask who you can contact on the SC if you have any questions prior to the interview. Get contact information in case something happens that prevents you from getting to the show on time.

APA is a mob scene. It's stressful. The wi-fi can be really sucky, so don't count on it working. Take snacks (the food is expensive in the hotels). Try to have fun. Silently judge the other philosophers based on irrelevant factors like hair and shoes. Don't get drunk. Few people are as charming as they think they are when drunk.

Take your intervew clothes in your carry-on bag.

Pray to Khione for good weather (the APA can't handle predictable winter storms).

I'll open this up to the floor for questions. And answers, from thems what gots 'em.

~zombie

Zachary Ernst's Accusation of Sexism

2011-12-03T09:23:00.000-08:00

As you may have heard, there has been some discussion of a piece written Zachary Ernst of Missouri, in which he vocalizes his frustration with the fact that his wife has been subject to an unfavorable tenure vote by his department, and in which he suggests that sexism was a major contributing factor in this vote, and which you can find here.

I spent some time poking around the Mizzou philosophy department webpage the other day, and I think 3 things are clear: 1. Prof. Ernst is understandably very frustrated and upset; 2. This is not at all a case in which a denial of tenure was warranted on the basis of insufficient research--her record would have gotten her tenure where I now teach and at every place I've interviewed where they told me what I'd need to do to get tenure; 3. There are a bunch of facts we don't have, such as: the tenure procedures and criteria employed at Mizzou; how tough it is generally to get tenure there; the content of her reference letters; details about teaching; etc. So although the charge of sexism does not seem implausible, neither is it obviously true in light of what we don't know.

This is a sensitive issue, obviously, so let's try harder than usual to stay cool. I'm going to exercise more discretion than usual in comment-moderation in this one.

--Mr. Zero

Online Applications for the Third Year in a Row

2011-11-21T12:41:00.000-08:00

After years of complaining about it, I'm finally sold on the online application process. Maybe it's just that I'm getting used to it, but it was not at all terrible this year. Easily three fourths of my applications this year were online, so it might also have just been that I was in "online application" mode from the start. It's still pretty obnoxious how you have to fill out the same contact info/references data in every application, but this year my autofill did a better job of filling out the forms for me, so it wasn't as much of a hassle.

Another nice thing about online apps is this: when I prepare paper applications, I am very bad about knowing how many of each document I will need and I always end up having to print out one or two more of a bunch of documents at the last minute. Obviously CVs and writing samples are easy, since everybody wants those, but I never print out enough research statements or syllabuses for business ethics. Online applications make this a non-issue.

Also, online applications are much, much cheaper. Way cheaper. Vastly cheaper.

And it seems like people are getting better about having "upload" slots for each required document. I only had one unexpected occasion to go into Adobe and make a combination PDF of several required documents.

It's also nice not to have to wait around for all the photocopies to copy. Making 30 or 40 copies of your writing sample is time-consuming and annoying. And I always do my copying in the evenings so I don't tie up the copier during the day, so it was nice not having to do very much of that.

But if I may make a suggestion, please put the application process all online or all offline. No more of this "submit these three documents electronically and then these four documents in hard copy" bullshit. That's the worst. Pick one.

--Mr. Zero

"Evidence of excellence in teaching"

2011-11-15T06:32:00.000-08:00

Comments on the last post indicate an interest in the teaching portfolio, particularly for applications to those institutions where teaching is "valued." There was much discussion of the value of student evaluations, but I think a more general discussion of the teaching portfolio would be informative for job applicants.

I haven't served on a search committee, so I can only speak for what apparently worked for me as an applicant. My teaching portfolio included: a teaching statement, selected syllabi (tailored to the interests of the hiring dept), and student eval data sheets (with departmental data sheets for context) for every class I ever taught (but not the actual Scantron sheets or the student comments). Additionally, I would send a letter of recommendation from a faculty evaluator at a previous adjunct job. For a job where teaching was emphasized over research, I would send a CV with the teaching experience moved to the top, research further down. All in all, my complete teaching package came to 41 pages, about half of which was the student evals. Sometimes, I did not send the evals, because of file size limitations on e-applications. But in my cover letter I would always offer to send additional materials by request.

Some of my syllabi were for courses I had taught, and some were courses I proposed (but did not teach) or for courses I have an interest in teaching. So, some were "made up," but I can say that I put just as much work into constructing those syllabi as I put into syllabi for courses I have taught. (This is a good summer project for future jobseekers.) Which is to say, if you lack teaching experience, you can still think about teaching and invent syllabi and and a write a teaching statement.

I only ever had to do one teaching demo. It was a weird kind of trial by fire. I was asked to teach part of a class on something completely unrelated to the AOS/AOC of the job, and completely unrelated to my AOS/AOC. It was, so far as I could tell, an opportunistic scheduling -- the prof offered to give up half the class for the teaching demo. So I had to come up with something I knew that I could relate to the topic. At the half way point in the class, the SC filed in to observe from the back of the class. (In retrospect, the entire campus visit was a little odd, and I did not get the job.)

I reckon there must be some variation in what SCs are looking for in a teaching portfolio, and how much weight they give to various elements of the package.

I suppose applicants with less teaching experience might be at a disadvantage for jobs that "value" teaching, if actual teaching experience is a prerequisite. As I understand it, European PhD programs don't routinely (or ever?) include teaching or assisting duties for grads. Do they employ student evals? What should those applicants do about the teaching package (other than explain why they don't have teaching experience or evals)?

~zombie

Some Things I Have Noticed While Perusing This Year's Job Ads

2011-11-10T09:45:00.000-08:00

1. Gettysburg College wants someone whose Area of Specialization is philosophy of peace and nonviolence. That seems pretty specific. Is this something that a lot of people specialize in? Are there enough controversial philosophical issues surrounding peace and nonviolence to make this a worthwhile area of specialization? Why would a philosophy department at such a small school require a philosopher with such a specific, narrow specialization?

2. This year's award for best "is there an echo in here?" ad goes to University of Reading, Reading, Reading. (#61, 192W). Yeah, but where is this university located?

3. Saint Anselm College wants someone who specializes in "contemporary" and whose AOC is the (entire?) history of philosophy. I guess they want a real generalist. Someone with a broad background.

4. I see a couple of one-semester VAPs (e.g. Lyon College, #30, 192W). Why would anyone agree to that? I could see it if you already lived in Batesville, Arkansas, pop. 9,556. But you don't, do you?

5. As Zombie points out, and has been discussed in comments, the Cycorp ad is pretty awesome.

6. I think I picked up exactly one new application in 192/192W. I'll double-check later when I have more time, but that's piss-poor.

7. This sucks.

--Mr. Zero

November JFP

2011-11-09T06:31:00.000-08:00

...is up. 105 total ads in the print edition; last year had 145; the year before that had 131; the year before that had 188.

68 more ads in the web-onlies, many of which are not web-only. Hard to say how many new ads total; I'll have to go through and count later on when I get a free moment. Or, some industrious Smoker could do it and post the number in comments; I'm sure we'd all be grateful to anyone who was willing to do it.

This sort of sucks; I don't like it very much.

--Mr. Zero

P.S. I suspect that this post sets a new Philosophy Smoker record for semicolons per paragraph in a post; I like semicolons.

Mental Health Break

2011-11-08T11:13:00.000-08:00

The great Modern Jazz Quartet with the definitive version its signature piece, "Django." From the European Concernt. If you don't have it, get it.

--Mr. Zero

Deep Thought

2011-11-05T12:49:00.000-07:00

I don't like being on the job market very much and I look forward to a time when I don't have to do it any more.

--Mr. Zero

How Do You Register for the Eastern APA Meeting?

2011-11-01T11:00:00.001-07:00

Prof Kate recently asked,

I cannot seem to figure out how to register for the Eastern APA. I log on to apaonline. I click on the bright red "Register" link on the homepage, and it takes me to an 'events' page with this sort of calendar interface, as if I'm searching for flights, you know? So I enter the appropriate date range, and it prompts me for the city, and I type Washington. Then... then what? I click 'filter' but nothing happens. Friends, Smokers, frokers, please tell me what I'm doing wrong. (And DON'T say "you're using apaonline, is what you're doing wrong." Cuz I know, I know... I blame myself.)

Well, how?

--Mr. Zero

Speaking of APA...

2011-10-31T12:09:00.000-07:00

I recently received my membership renewal form from APA. It was forwarded, twice (through two countries), because the APA apparently did not make note of my new address after I submitted it to their website before they sent the renewal notice out.

Since I'm not on the job market anymore, I'm having a hard time figuring out why I should pay $100+ per year to be a member of APA. I generally think those association memberships people put on their CVs are a joke. Plus, I'm already a member of the Association of Successful Succeeders Promoting Achievement and Success Successfully! (ASSPASS)

Plus, what Groucho Marx said.

Why do I need to be a member of APA? Anyone?

Bueller?

~zombie

Not all job market advice is a lie

2011-10-31T06:37:00.000-07:00

Update: Bearistotle reminds us that the APA did have a session on best practices recently. I vaguely remember that. My bad:
Fun fact: The APA had a session at the pacific last year on best practices for hiring and placement. It was not well attended, but it is worth acknowledging when the APA is working to provide the very thing you suggest would be ideal.
I also think the name 'Bearistotle' is pretty awesome.

Among the noise at the comments here about cover letters, John Doris provides what seems to me to be good advice:

I'd suggest: write a generic letter that treats both research and teaching, and is long enough to not risk insulting those who might be insulted by perceived cursoriness (1-1.5 pp. ?). Then, tailor pretty selectively, where 1. There's reason to think the institution has retention anxiety ("While the homicide rate in St. Louis is off putting, I just love those plucky Cardinals.") or 2. You are an *especially* good fit ("I'm delighted to see you have an AOC in Philosophy of Baseball; I was a minor league utility infielder for three seasons.") I'd be pretty selective about this selection, and not stretch too much: my cover letter to an appealing SLAC arguing for fit on the grounds my sister went there did not, sad to say, take me very far.

I might add also that if you are a member of an underrepresented population in philosophy, that you mention that also.

Anyways. Many of the other, more detailed comments on the thread are good too. I wish all job market advice looked something like some of the comments on this thread. So, please everyone who writes into these threads, keep writing in; it's a great courtesy and much appreciated.

However, speaking more generally and separate from any particular comments in the thread, I do think that it is time to dispense with personal anecdotes that sound like so much ad hoc reasoning justifying past practices. I also think that job market advice should not be framed in terms of how annoyed one is by reading certain parts of dossiers: "You stupid applicant. You think your stupid cover letter is going to help you get this job. Stupid. I'm so offended by your stupidity that you think you can pull the wool over my eyes with your stupid cover letter. Gah. Stupid applicants. *SIGH*" I find such framing offensive and I'm probably not alone. (YOU HURT MY FEELINGS!!!! I'M JUST TRYING TO GET A JOB!!!!)

Finally, I think something like what Anonymous Job Seeker suggests in the same thread is right:

The simple fact of the matter is that the hiring process is so variegated that nobody has any real idea how it happens outside their own local experience.

What would be *really* useful to job seekers and search committees alike is a compendium of best practices. This would outline profession-wide norms and expectations, against which individual institutions and applicants could then note differences. Everything from what goes into a dossier to timelines and procedures. The short notices in the back of the JFP are as insufficient as they are ignored.

Ugh. Job market.

--Jaded, Ph.D.

This Year's October JFP

2011-10-26T15:09:00.000-07:00

I have a few observations about this year's October JFP.

1. I kind of like that they stopped organizing the ads by region. I always wondered why the Central district was one thing and the Midwest district was something else. This is not a big deal, I guess, but who says every point has to be significant?

2. I'm still not in love with the way they start the numbers over for the web-only ads, but at least the duplicates are clearly labeled.

3. As in past years, many of the web-only ads paradoxically also appear in the print version.

4. I feel like there are fewer "open" ads than usual, but I'm not sure that's really accurate. I think there were a lot more in '09, and not as many last year.

5. I'll be applying for around 40 jobs from issue 191; that's about 10 more than last October.

6. I'll be applying for around 3 jobs that weren't in the JFP; of those, none were found on the Phylo jobs or PhilJobs websites. Higher Ed Jobs.

7. My guess is that I'll add another 10 applications in November. If so, this will be the best year since before Lehman Brothers. By kind of a lot. It won't be anywhere near pre-economic-catastrophe levels, though.

8. Almost all my applications will be online this year. Three fourths, anyway. That's up from just under half in '09 and '10.

9. But, and I know I'm not the only person to have pointed this out recently, it would be nice if you could save portions of your profile in the system and not have to retype all the info for every online application.

10. I feel pretty good going in. My file is better this year than it was last year. I feel like I'm making the right kind of progress. I've been in the wilderness for a while, but I think it's clear that I have been using this time well. While I would not describe myself as "confident," or anything, I think I have a respectable chance this year. Relatively speaking. I'm proud of what I've accomplished, anyways.

11. Good luck, everyone.

--Mr. Zero

There has to be a better way...

2011-10-25T07:28:00.000-07:00

... and it seems there is. Via Leiter, there's a pointer to this post at Philosophy, et cetera asking why philosophy departments don't use academicjobsonline.org, an academic jobs portal that lists jobs and streamlines the online application process while still allowing applicants to customize their dossier package. It is an extension of a service create by the American Mathematical Society.

Why, indeed. The current system is all over the place. Some departments want you to email your dossier package. The downside, often, is that you have to make your files tiny, or they get rejected by the recipient's mail server. Or the recipient's mailbox is full, and then you can't submit at all. You also get no confirmation of receipt, unless you BCC yourself everything (and then you at least know that your email got delivered somewhere), or the recipient is decent enough to confirm. Some departments (or HR offices) require you to upload all your files to their website. They pretty much all use the same (not very good) software, yet applicants are required to create an account and login for each one, and fill in the forms for each one. So, do the same work (20 minutes, on average) times 30. There's 10 hours of your life.

academicjobsonline.org is free for applicants. Reference letters can be uploaded to the service, and submitted to jobs for FREE. What the hell?

So, when the question has come up in discussions here as to why the philosophy departments can't get their shit together and standardize the application process, the typical reply is that it is not their fault. It's Human Resources, and university administrations that dictate (with an iron fist, no doubt) how applications are submitted. Let's be charitable and assume that's true. Do they have a separate policy for Math departments? Because last time I checked, a lot of those math departments were operating in the same universities that have philosophy grad programs.

So, to sum up, a system already exists to centralize the job listing and application process, it is completely independent of APA (that paragon of online ineptitude), and it is free for job applicants. In other words, everything we've been clamoring for. The JFP lists three programs (Yale, Duke, and Tufts) who are already using it this year. Someone explain to me why all the others (really, truly) are not using it, too.

~zombie

Applying to the Same Job Ad More than Once.

2011-10-24T12:06:00.000-07:00

There was a discussion last week at Philosophers Anonymous about whether an applicant who applied for a job last year and didn't get an interview should respond to an identical ad in this year's JFP. Spiros says, "obviously no," but the ensuing discussion was more positive. Some people pointed out that search committees can change pretty dramatically from year to year. A few people pointed out that they had done this with success.

It seems to me that re-applying is the right thing. The point about search-committee makeup seems right to me. Not only will different people be on the search committee, but the files will be distributed to committee members differently, so there's every chance that the decision regarding the initial cut will be made by a different person than last year, even assuming some overlap.

For another thing, if your file has improved at all over the past year, you should definitely re-apply.

For another thing, you should re-apply even if it's all the same committee members and your file hasn't improved. The process is capricious. Many of the decisions about which files to consider further are made arbitrarily. The fact that you didn't get an interview doesn't mean you were undeserving. It might just mean that by the time they got to your file they had 20 names for the long list already, so there wasn't room for you.

And even if you weren't good enough then and you aren't any better now, it still makes as much sense to reapply as it did to apply in the first place. It costs you barely anything. And even if they thought you were completely inadequate when they saw your file the first time, and even if they literally laugh at you when they see it again, I still don't think it represents a reason not to apply. It's not like you'd know they were laughing. Nobody is going to tell you that they laughed. They'll just send you the same PFO they send you the year before (if they send them--not everybody does).

So I say, apply widely and often. Even if it's for the same job over and over.

--Mr. Zero

No one would talk much in society if they knew how often they misunderstood others (Goethe)

2011-10-18T07:56:00.000-07:00

Anonymous asks here about potential interview bias/hiring against non-native English speakers:

What are the biases against those candidates for whom English is a second language? How much does one's accent influence her/his epistemic reliability as a scholar, as well as a potential teacher, in the context of the job interviews? Do some accents (e.g., of French speakers) make one sound more sophisticated and knowledgeable than others (e.g., east asian)? What kind of measures, if any, are taken to prevent this sort of bias?

I've known a number of philosophers on the market for whom English was a second language. Some were extremely and comfortably fluent, and it did not seem to affect their prospects (although they faced immigration/visa hurdles instead). So, I would imagine that fluency and how easily you are understood (or perceived to be understood) matter here. Just having a non-American accent (British or Australian, say) does not seem to be an impediment.

(As an aside, I spoke to an insurance agent on the phone the other day, and she had a very, very pronounced Southern accent, and I really struggled to understand her. I wonder if there may be biases against certain regional American accents?)

As American universities admit growing numbers of international students, this becomes a relevant issue for those students if they hope to pursue an academic job in the US. Is the deck stacked against them if they have an accent?

~zombie

Liberty "University" is Hiring

2011-10-15T09:50:00.000-07:00

Unfortunately, it's not tenure track. And it's too bad the ad doesn't say anything about which classes the candidate will be responsible for teaching, or what these classes are like. But when you apply, don't forget: you'll need a letter from your pastor. Somehow I get the feeling that this ad is not in compliance with the APA's nondiscrimination policy.

--Mr. Zero

JFP is up

2011-10-11T21:24:00.001-07:00

194 ads, which is substantially better than last year's 157. There are another 48 web-onlies.

In October of '09, there were 140 in the print version; in October '08, there were 267; in '07, we had 347.

--Mr. Zero

P.S. hat tip to anon 9:21

Situational influences during job interviews

2011-10-11T10:09:00.001-07:00

Doing some reading for the class I'm teaching, specifically John Doris' piece on criminal law and the psychology of excuses. This stood out for me:

"...situational influences often appear to do their work with little regard to the character or personality of the person in the situation... social psychologists have repeatedly found that both disappointing omissions and appalling actions are readily induced through seemingly minor situational manipulations."

This strikes me as relevant to the inevitable discussions about interview dress codes that pop up here during the job season. (For the record, I really enjoy those discussions, and how het up some Smokers get about it.) I think it's interesting how often it is stated (or implied) that there must be a character flaw (lack of virtue?) in interviewers who could be negatively influenced by the clothing (or makeup, or lack thereof) worn by the job candidate. This often appears in something resembling a defense of individual liberty in dress, with the implication being that anyone who is influenced by clothing must be petty, stupid, superficial, sexist, classist (choose your pejorative) if they let something like your suit (or lack thereof) influence their opinion of you as a job candidate.

It strikes me, though, that societal dress codes do their work in the background, like situational influences. The fact that I'm a feminist doesn't stop me from seeing some women's clothing as kinda trashy, for instance, even if the wearer is not, in fact, trashy. I can acknowledge your right to express yourself through your clothing without having to concede that, by the fashion norms of the moment, your clothing is kinda trashy. (And if I can see butt crack, I'm offended -- that goes for guys and gals.) There's a female scientist at the university where I teach. She has made some significant research contributions to her field. But before I knew that about her, I only knew what she looked like, and what she looked like to me is someone who, although young, has had a significant amount of plastic surgery, wears a huge amount of makeup, and wears hooker boots, all of which made it hard for me to take her seriously. I'm pretty liberal about clothing (except the aforementioned coin slots, as well as camel toes, and toe cleavage, which, I'll admit, is my personal bugaboo). I really, really like the fact that, as academics, we typically have more sartorial freedom than people in many other professions have, but were I on an SC interviewing such a candidate, I would probably have the same first impression, based only on her appearance. Her CV, of course, might tell a very different story, but given ten job candidates, all well-qualified (which is to say, all else being equal), her appearance might be a liability for me. And given that she's going to get half an hour of my time, there's a relatively small window of opportunity there to alter my impression.

The point is, when you show up for an interview, your appearance will make an impression (conscious or subconscious, good or bad) on the interviewers, and this impression may have nothing to do with their own character flaws, and everything to do with social norms and situational influences. One way to neutralize factors that are beyond your control, at least as far as clothing is concerned, is to (at least minimally) meet the expectations. This doesn't strike me as evil or onerous, nor as a violation of the individual liberty of someone who is on the job market, any more than expecting you not to behave like a complete asshat (even if you are a complete asshat) is too much to ask. By not drawing attention to your appearance (or asshattedness), you leave more attention for you and your work, no? (Actors -- male and female -- who have had too much plastic surgery distract me no end. I can't watch the performance when I'm continually distracted by the weird topography of their faces.)

There are cases, I would argue, where appearance-based biases would be far more troubling and pernicious: assumptions about skin color, sex, nationality, or disability, for example. But clothing is voluntary, and you have choices. My assumptions about your clothing may be wrong, but it is not unreasonable for me to make some assumptions. Is it?

This is, it's worth noting, a discussion other professions have too.

~zombie

Another consideration for female job-seekers

2011-10-10T07:58:00.000-07:00

TSS asked (on another thread):

Since we're talking about female-specific job application worries, this seems like a good place for my slightly thread-jacking question about overseas jobs: When one doesn't have vast experience with foreign travel,how does one find out whether the country in which one is about to apply for a job is a decent place to live as a Western woman? A couple of recent job postings are in Turkey, Singapore, and Bangledesh. Are any of these awful places to be female? If you don't have friends who have lived there, how do you find out? What say you, fellow Smokers?

Good question. One of my criteria when looking for a job has been "Would I want to raise my daughter in this place?" If the answer was no (true of many places in the US), I didn't apply. Secondary question: "Can I take my cats with me?" (This ruled out some overseas positions.) I find it useful to look at department websites -- are there a lot of women on the faculty? I recall looking at the website for a university in Egypt last year and being surprised at the really good representation of female faculty. Doing the same for many US schools, you are more likely than not to see women seriously underrepresented, so I don't know how instructive this strategy would actually be (and it may say nothing about day to day life for Western women in Egypt).

Jump in, Smokers.

~zombie

Still Waiting...

2011-10-08T07:54:00.000-07:00

As I prepare my application materials in advance of Wednesday's JFP-release, it occurs to me that I still haven't heard one way or the other about whether I got the job I on-campus interviewed for this past winter. I hope they let me know soon, because if I'm going to pack up and move across the country in time to start teaching classes for fall term, I need to get on it, like, yesterday.

--Mr. Zero

The APA's JFP Web Page Is Organized Wrong

2011-10-07T05:28:00.000-07:00

This is a small point, but worth making. The JFP section of the APA's website contains a list of various editions of web-only ads. These ads are listed in a senseless and arbitrary order, beginning with issue #190, last updated June 16 of this year; followed for some reason by #187, last updated October 20 of last year; then #188, last updated February 4 of this year; then the current "summer" web-onlies, last updated a couple of weeks ago; lastly, issue #189, last updated April 14.

I mean, what is the deal? Why not just put them in goddam chronological order? And if you're not going to do that, why not try numerical order? What's the point of giving them numbers if you're going to turn around and display them in some random bullshit order? Why would the most recent ads be listed second to last?

I mean, I'm not saying I think they should do something right. I'm not crazy. Why can't they do anything in a way that makes any sense at all?

--Mr. Zero

Another New Philosophy Jobs Website

2011-10-06T15:07:00.000-07:00

Via Anon 2:53 and Ethics, Etc, we learn that the group responsible for Phil Papers brings us Phil Jobs. Like Phylo Jobs, it's pretty cool.

--Mr. Zero

Request for Advice for Women In Particular About What to Wear for Interviews

2011-10-06T07:35:00.000-07:00

An anonymous Smoker writes:

I'll be hitting the American and the European job market this fall. To avoid making a bad impression, I would like to know what conventions there are in academic interviews in the philosophy market. This varies a lot between disciplines (I've been told that in physics or computer sciences, people show up in t-shirt and jeans and successfully land jobs). I don't want to overdress, but I don't want to underdress either. I am especially interested in women's clothes, and also in the accessories (jewelry or not, makeup or not, length of heels, etc). Whenever I inquire about this to my mentors like my advisor, they remain very vague (e.g., just dress nicely), so it would be helpful to get specific information.

I don't really know anything about this, but one thing I have observed from following Mrs. Zero into such stores as Old Navy, Banana Republic, and Macy*s is that women have a lot more options than men when it comes to "dressing up," and not everything that would count as "dressing up" for a woman is the least bit professional, and that all this makes things tougher on women. So what do you say, Smokers?

--Mr. Zero

Phylo Jobs Announces...

2011-10-05T06:50:00.001-07:00

In comments here, Chris Alen Sula of the Phylo Jobs project links to this announcement, which reads:

google map, social media, and new features at phylo jobs

Over the next few days, we’ll be updating you on the latest developments to our job advertisement services, including:

live Google map of open positions (phylo.info/jobs/map)
additional delivery options (RSS, text-only, mobile, Twitter, Facebook)
screencasts on using Phylo Jobs services
launch of our registered e-newspaper, Job Openings in Philosophy, to aid institutions with federal compliance
streamlined Jobs Wiki design for unofficial status updates (which still includes customized RSS feeds) (phylo.info/jobs/wiki)

As of October 1, 2011, we also require that each job poster certifies that his/her institution complies with American Philosophical Association’s Non-Discrimination Statement.

I cannot say enough how awesome this is. As of this writing, the Phylo Jobs site has 80 job listings, almost all of which were unsolicited by the editors. This has been really successful so far. Many thanks to Chris Alen Sula and David Morrow for putting this together. Truly wonderful.

--Mr. Zero

The JPF Paywall Blues

2011-10-04T11:36:00.000-07:00

Edit: Oops. I forgot to fill in the title before I hit publish.

Fritz McDonald writes with the following observation, which has been receiving some deserved attention lately:

As far as I can tell, the only relevant service provided by the APA is to organize conferences, and given that these conferences are just general philosophy conferences with no central focus and some curious choices of topical focus, the only raison d'être of the Eastern APA meeting is the job market. Nobody would willingly choose to spend the time between Christmas and New Years working without the job market at the Eastern and the related conference. In light of this, the most important resource on the APA website is Jobs for Philosophers. Given the desperate state of most graduate students in philosophy, who are generally underpaid and tend to have to live in expensive areas, the JFP information should be freely available right on the front of the website. After all, as far as I can tell, the only real reason we need a print listing of job ads such as JFP is so all searches are publicly available, for affirmative action purposes. I have not heard any other justification for JFP. Yet the APA almost goes out of its way to hide the JFP. You cannot even see the link to the JFP if you are not logged in as a member. You have to first click on the option of "Resources" and then select "Member Resources," an option that can only be seen if you are logged in as a member. Needless to say, this has the effect of making the job search process significantly more difficult for people who cannot afford the APA dues and quite a bit more difficult for people who are not tech savvy. To some degree, making the JFP a hidden resource like this itself leads to some kind of discrimination against the poor and/or the tech un-savvy. So why not put the JFP right on the front of the page and make it available to everyone everywhere, just like the listings on the Chronicle of Higher Education website? Better yet, why don't we all agree that if we are hiring, we will also post our ads to phylo.info/jobs?

It seems to me that the APA uses the JFP to force vulnerable members of the profession to become members. Until recently, I was taking advantage of the fact that although the JFP was in the members-only section of the website, you could easily access it if you knew the URL. And I think it is no coincidence that the one part of the new website that works really quite well is the paywall in front of the JFP. (And I will tell you that when at various times in the past I have been a member of the APA it has been solely to gain access to their various bits of job-market infrastructure.)

And the more I think of it, the more perverse I think this is. The JFP is a list of ads that you have to pay for if you want to see. This abrogates the entire point of advertising. The point of e.g. newspaper and magazine advertising is to defray the production costs of the newspaper or magazine--that is, the costs associated with equipment, rent, paying people to write the articles, etc.--so that it is affordable to the consumer. The JFP cannot possibly involve much in the way of such expenses, so it's hard to imagine that the paywall is driven by a financial necessity. The JFP is more like a third-rate craigslist with a print edition, or those books of car- or real estate ads they have next to the door at the supermarket, than a newspaper. Those things charge the advertisers, not the advertisees. And it's not in the interests of the advertisers to have the JFP behind a paywall, for it is in their interests that their advertisements be disseminated as widely as possible.

So what of it? Why doesn't the APA make the JFP freely available to everyone? (By which I mean to encourage the APA to do this. I guess I think I know why they won't.)

And search committees: please, please, please post your ads to the Phylo Jobs site. Pretty please.

--Mr. Zero

Hitchcock on Serving on a Search Committee

2011-09-28T13:54:00.000-07:00

In a recent comment here, Christopher Hitchcock says some important things about search committees, how they function, and how they ought to function. I reproduce the comment in full here:

Let me follow up on one thread of this discussion where some unpleasantries were exchanged. Again, I am only drawing on my own experience conducting searches.

When I am involved in a search, I am genuinely interested in finding the best candidate for the position. That involves making as accurate an evaluation as possible of the candidate's research (actual and potential) and other qualities as a colleague. I do not think that it serves this purpose to treat the process like the compulsories of Olympic figure skating. (Oh, she wobbled on the landing, that's a .2 deduction. Oh, the candidate had parsley on her tooth, that's a .3 deduction.) I would be very surprised if most other don't proceed in the same way. (When I was on the job market in the 90's, one of my fellow job-seekers discovered that s/he had submitted a writing sample with "Freeedom" in the title. It did not seem to do any harm. One distinguished senior philosopher sent him/her a funny short essay on the importance of distinguishing true 'freeedom' from mere 'freedom'.)

That said, I think it would help all job seekers to have some sense of what it is like on the other side. Conducting a search is a full-time job for six weeks. Even with all of that, we can afford to read the writing samples of about 25% of the applicants. This means that we have to eliminate the majority of candidates before we even look at the writing samples. So we definitely read the files looking for reasons to throw them on the discard pile.

I have been involved in about 8 searches in past 10 years. During that time, I have read the work of a lot of young philosophers. There are many excellent philosophers whose work I first got to know through this process. I admire and respect them. Unfortunately, even among those whose work I admire and enjoy, the vast majority will not get job offers from us.

That was the lead up to a confession. When I and my colleagues are immersed in files, pretty much every waking moment spent sorting through the pile, it is as natural to talk about them as it is to, e.g. complain about the weather or the republicans in congress. Sometimes we say things that are disrespectful of the candidates or make jokes at their expense. I recognize that this is not ideal behavior, and I would be mortified if any of these got back to the candidates. But it is pretty much impossible to work that hard, become that immersed in the process, and always comport oneself with the utmost seriousness of purpose. (Many of you may be familiar with this from grading stacks of papers.) But I do make every effort not to let such joking affect our treatment of the candidates, or evaluation of their work.

Good luck to those of you applying for jobs, I wish you well.

I think that the phenomenon to which professor Hitchcock alludes is unavoidably human and something to which job-seekers themselves are not immune. We here at the Smoker are, after all, fond of mocking job ads and rejection letters. And I think it is basically harmless if it is successfully compartmentalized in the manner in which Hitchcock suggests.

However, I worry that it is often not successfully compartmentalized. Over the years, people claiming to be search committee members have written in comments on this blog and its immediate ancestor about how such things as typos, copy-and-paste errors, spelling errors, and what they perceive to be the applicant's attitude about the various job-market procedures function for them as criteria for automatic rejection. To take Prof. Hitchcock's grading analogy, it is one thing to complain about a student's spelling errors and to take those spelling errors into account when assigning a grade. But it's something else altogether to say, Anyone who would spell 'catigoracle emparative" that way doesn't care enough about my class to deserve an A.

--Mr. Zero

why you should try to be interesting

2011-09-25T10:41:00.000-07:00

Another link with an interesting take by Mark Lance:

http://www.newappsblog.com/2011/09/a-strategic-thought-on-entering-the-job-market.html

If nothing else, worth reading it for the apt baseball analogy.

-- Second Suitor

Brooks Advice on Publishing in Philosophy

2011-09-22T05:59:00.000-07:00

Because he's right, it's always a good read:

http://tinyurl.com/publishingadvice

Side note: Sure my submission got rejected, but I'm happy to recommend the Journal of Moral Philosophy as a quick, professional unit. One of the good ones.

-- Second Suitor

How to Assemble a Tenure-Track Job Application

2011-09-21T16:49:00.001-07:00

Interesting discussion going on at NewAPPS about how to put together a dossier that will make the first cut. Mohan Matthen asks search committee members how they make the first cut here, and discusses the results of the discussion here.

Important things that applicants can control include cover letters, the research statement, and teaching materials including evals, sample syllabuses, and a letter from someone who has seen you teach.

--Mr. Zero

The New Jobs Site

2011-09-21T14:31:00.000-07:00

Sure does look nice and work well, doesn't it?

Thanks again to David Morrow and Chris Sula for setting it up. It really is a wonderful thing you've done.

--Mr. Zero

The Worst Defense of APA Interviews In The World

2011-09-20T08:14:00.000-07:00

I was rereading the recent comment thread at Leiter about whether or not APA interviews are worth it, and was struck by this comment:

Suppose a dept. moves entirely to video conference interviews or forgoes interviews altogether. Some candidates for the job will likely be at the APA anyhow, and some members of the search cmte. might be too. A candidate might go to a dept.'s table at the Smoker and talk to a member of the search cmte. and get a leg up that way. How could this worry be alleviated? Options:

1. No one from the search cmte goes to the APA. (This might not be possible, and it's an odd result.)
2. No one from the search cmte talk to job candidates at the APA. (This can end up creating some really awkward situations.)
3. All the interviews and the decisions about whom to bring to campus be made before the APA. This is perhaps the best solution, but it might not always be so easy to do, depending on a lot of scheduling factors.

He's saying that we should do interviews at the APA so as to eliminate the possibility of a candidate gaining an unfair advantage over her competitors by going to the APA meeting and chatting with someone from the search committee who also happened to be there. I mean, there are problems, and then there are problems.

--Mr. Zero

New "Supplement" to the JFP

2011-09-19T04:53:00.000-07:00

David Morrow, who is awesome, writes:

Chris Sula and I have revamped the Phylo site to create an actual jobs board to (ahem) supplement the JFP. The URL is the same as the old wiki: http://phylo.info/jobs. As of today, we'll start accepting job postings in that space from departmental representatives only. Following Harry Brighouse's advice, we'll also require a link to an external site (e.g., an announcement on the department's web site) to verify each post's authenticity. We're moving the job wiki to http://phylo.info/jobs/wiki. People will still be able to post unofficial updates there. We're still in the process of updating the wiki software to play nicely with the jobs board, but it will be up well before anyone needs to post status updates. In the meantime, watch the main jobs board to find out about job openings..

This is super awesome. I'm sure I don't speak only for myself when I say how grateful I am to David and Chris for doing this. Thank you both.

It also seems to me that in order for this to work, it has to be well-publicized. So job-seekers everywhere would appreciate it if Smokers with blogs of their own, or who post to the various philosophy listserves, etc, would help spread the word.

--Mr. Zero

The two-body problem

2011-09-16T07:22:00.000-07:00

When I was offered my job last spring, the chair told me that the University had a spousal hiring program, and encouraged me to utilize it, if needed. (I didn't need -- my spouse is not an academic, and has a work-at-home career). At a party recently, someone in the dept mentioned that spousal hiring used to be a really big issue for the department and the University. (This makes sense -- there are few other places nearby where a spouse could get any job, let alone an academic job.) As I get to know my colleagues, I see that there are quite a few couples in the dept, so the likelihood is that there has been a lot of spousal hiring over the years. Which has made me think about the practice.

A little over a third of academics are married to other academics (I don't know if legally unmarried same-sex couples are included in that figure) according to this interesting defense of spousal hires over at the Chronicle. Those couples, just like everyone else, chose their professions, chose whom they married, etc. But if you spend your early adulthood on a university campus pursuing a PhD, chances are good the people you're going to meet and fall in love with will also be academics.

It is also the case that we don't live in a world of single-income families for the most part. Couples have dual careers. Requiring that one half of a dual career couple sacrifice his or her career so the other can get a job doesn't seem like a good way to encourage your new hire to stay put. Likewise, forcing couples and families to live apart, or endure very long commutes, would not encourage your new hire to fully engage with and be a part of the department, college or university community. (I have friends for whom this is a significant issue -- including a couple in philosophy now living thousands of miles apart.) So, spousal hires would seem like a useful tool for faculty recruitment and retention. And since any spouse hired for a TT position would still have to meet the requirements of tenure, the qualifications of the "trailing spouse" puts reasonable constraints on spousal hiring. (Obviously there must be spousal hiring concerns with nonacademic spouses as well.)

As someone fresh off the job market, I know how hard it is to get a TT job, and how scarce those jobs are. I can't help but feel a little resentful of the possibility that someone got a job through some form of spousal "cronyism." But I'm not convinced that spousal hiring is really unfair, or that it has ever disadvantaged me, or that it's bad for academia. The comments to the Chronicle essay, OTOH, are pretty overwhelmingly negative, filled with resentment and invective. They seem largely founded on the belief that a spousal hire takes a job away from some other, more deserving person. Or that trailing spouses are all drunks and scoundrels. There's a less heated and more nuanced discussion here.

One issue that comes up a lot on discussion boards (like here, here and here) is how to approach the issue of spousal hiring if you are a job applicant. Few job ads say anything about spousal hires. Undoubtedly, some schools and departments are more open to them than others. (If I had to guess, I would guess philosophy departments are less open than others. But it's a guess.) With some institutions experiencing severe budgetary restraints, they are probably not even possible in many cases. So, the current economic and job climate in academe (and in general) makes spousal hiring a more urgent problem for job seekers and hiring departments alike, while at the same time, it (perhaps) becomes less likely. (If anyone knows of any recent numbers on spousal hires, I'd like to know about them.)

From a job seeker's perspective, it strikes me that the right time for this issue to be raised is when an offer is made. I can't see a reason for a job applicant to show his or her hand at the application stage, or even at the interview stage. As a job applicant, I didn't apply for jobs in locations that were unacceptable to me and my family. I didn't apply for jobs in places where I wouldn't want to raise my kid. If I was hoping for a job where a spouse could also find meaningful work and make a decent living, that would have put further limits on the jobs I applied for. But it doesn't strike me that it's on me (or my spouse, who may also be on the market) to disclose upfront that I'm looking for a spousal accommodation. The risk for hiring departments at schools that do not or cannot accommodate spousal hires is that they'll make an offer that's turned down. But that's always a risk for them, right? Candidates can turn down jobs (or so the legends say) for any number of reasons.

As the job season is upon us, I'm interested to know what the Smokers think or have experienced, and if you're part of an academic couple, how you're dealing with the two-body problem as a job applicant.

~zombie

Another Dog on the Pile

2011-09-16T06:31:00.000-07:00

I know everyone already knows this, but boy is that new APA website a complete piece of shit.

It frequently goes offline. (As anon 4:00AM points out, it is offline right now.)
The items on the menu bar are indistinguishable. You can't tell where one item stops and the next starts.
There's (still, in 2011) no way to pay your dues online.
There's (still, in 2011) no way to register for conferences online. (Right? I'd like to verify this, but, alas, the website is down.)
The JFP ad-submission system is fucked up and doesn't function, which has caused the publication of the October JFP to be delayed.
The JFP itself is somewhat hidden. And, apparently, some members in good standing are unable to see it at all.
The online paper-submission system for the Pacific Division Meeting is so poorly designed that it is nearly impossible to use successfully. I have never seen a submission system with such a counterintuitive set of procedures--you have to press the "back" button before you can press a "submit" button. And, of course, there is no clear set of instructions.
The other divisions, of course, do not seem to have online paper-submission systems at all. (I'd like to verify this, but, alas, the website is down.)
The administration doesn't respond to emails about this.

What in the fuck? Seriously. What. In. The. Fuck. The incompetence of this organization is simply amazing. It lacks even the most basic abilities required by a professional organization. Can I join and pay my dues online? No. Can I post a job ad online? No. Can I look at the jobs newsletter online? No. Can I submit a paper to one of your meetings online? No. Can we get a navigable website? No. Can I at least look at your website? No. Can I get a reply to my email about what in the fuck is going on? No.

--Mr. Zero

Guilty until proven innocent

2011-09-08T19:27:00.000-07:00

I'm at a new school this fall. I really like my students. They seem like a great bunch. Lively, engaged, thoughtful. Their first paper is due in a couple of weeks. The university has made Turnitin available. I've never used it before, although I've caught my share of plagiarized papers over the years. I now have a Turnitin account, but I have misgivings about using it. I guess because I feel like I am essentially accusing my students of being (at least) potential plagiarists even though I currently have no reason to think any of them are or would be plagiarists. It strikes me as being like overzealous airport security -- treat everyone like a potential criminal in order to (presumably) catch the rare miscreant. But at what cost?

Compounding my sense of unease (or irony) is that I'm teaching an Ethics class.

So, I'm interested in knowing about your experience using Turnitin. Is it worth the effort? Does it work? Do the benefits outweigh the potential harm? Does it make you feel like a mall cop?

~zombie

Reluctantly Crouched at the Starting Line (As Usual)

2011-09-08T08:37:00.001-07:00

It's getting to be that time of year again, and I've been busy preparing my application documents for another miserable job-market season. I had a relatively successful year this past year in terms of writing and publishing, and so I was able to move a bunch of stuff out of my "statement of current research projects" and add a bunch of new stuff in, which basically required me to rewrite the entire document from scratch. I've also changed strategy slightly in that I'm trying to sell myself more aggressively this year (not that I would have described my prior strategy as "passive"), and so I've had to rewrite a bunch of other material that could otherwise have stayed basically the same. It seems to me that my file is stronger now than it has ever been. I don't exactly feel great about my chances or anything, given the realities of the job market situation, but I also feel that, given the realities of my (heavy) courseload and (negligible) research support, I have done everything that it is possible to do to make myself into a strong candidate--and that I am a strong candidate. But I suppose we'll see.

How are the Smokers preparing for the job market this year?

--Mr. Zero

Ageism

2011-09-01T11:52:00.001-07:00

An anonymous Smoker writes:

I am a 49-year-old philosopher who has recently successfully defended his PhD at a Western European (non-UK) philosophy department.

My reading committee agreed that the PhD was excellent, worthy to be published as a book. I have a strong publication record of some 15 papers in good general and specialist journals, including PhilStudies, Journal of Aesthetics & Art Criticism, Biology & Philosophy, Dialectica, Synthese, and 6 more in edited book volumes. I am also an enthusiastic and effective teacher.
Yet I find now that I am being turned down for postdocs within my university and for postdocs organized by the national research foundation of my country, in favor of younger candidates whose publication record is at best equivalent to mine, or in many cases, inferior. Even a small travel grant that has a baseline chance of success of 80 % has been rejected, because the committee "have a preference for younger candidates" (a direct translation of their policy, which can be found online). I suspect that few departments would be willing to hire a 49-year-old in a tenure track position, but I am baffled as to why my age should play a role for positions that offer 3 or at most 6 years of postdoc experience (these positions cannot be turned into a TT position and cannot be extended).

Why is ageism still an accepted form of bigotry? There is so much talk of letting people work longer to combat the costs associated with an aging population, but if you decide to go to college again in your late thirties (as I did) you are severely penalized, even if you are a successful PhD student.

Any thoughts from people in the same situation? How do you surmount ageism? How do you deal with it in application materials?

What say you, Smokers?

--Mr. Zero

What is a "Behavioral Philosophy Lab Manager"?

2011-08-30T13:50:00.000-07:00

The folks at Schreiner University of Kerrville, Texas are advertising for one. Responsibilities include helping set up lab in new facilities; managing large amounts of data; analyzing this data; creating web pages; creating experiments on web-based testing platforms; attending weekly lab meetings; and may include mentoring undergraduate students and teaching classes. Qualifications include "at least a BA or BS degree," and "preference will be given to those in philosophy, psychology, or other behavioral sciences." I don't think they know what philosophy is. Or else the whole thing is a typo.

--Mr. Zero

Writing a Book

2011-08-30T08:48:00.001-07:00

I've been enjoying this thread on how junior people should go about writing a book and acquiring a book contract from a reputable publisher. I especially enjoyed these two comments, from David Chalmers, Peter Ohlin of Oxford UP (U.S.), and Peter Momtchiloff of Oxford UP (U.K.).

My only contribution to this discussion is this: somebody told me once that it is a good idea, when drawing up your book proposal, to indicate who you think they could sell your book to, if they let you write it, and why you think those people would buy it.

Also, when I was in college, I was really into Peter Momtchiloff's side project:

--Mr. Zero

Large Lecture Classes

2011-08-24T04:35:00.000-07:00

As I may have mentioned earlier, pretty soon I will be teaching one of those very large lecture hall classes, with no help. I haven't done this before, and I wonder if any of the Smokers with experience with this sort of thing had any tips. What are the pitfalls, and what are the secrets of success?

Thanks, y'all. I hope you're making the most of the last few weeks of summer. Or the first few weeks of the semester, as the case may be.

--Mr. Zero

Incurable

2011-08-23T11:21:00.000-07:00

--Mr. Zero

Inside Higher Ed on The Climate Guide

2011-08-19T14:04:00.000-07:00

I've been busy all day and haven't had a chance to read this, but there's a long article on the Climate Guide in Inside Higher Ed today.

--Mr. Zero

What Are You Teaching This Fall?

2011-08-18T18:24:00.000-07:00

I glanced at this NewAPPS thread this afternoon in which people say what courses they are teaching this fall, and what the enrollment caps for those classes are. And now I notice that In Socrates' Wake was getting in on the action. (Although so far there hasn't been much action.)

What stood out to me was this: a lot of people seem to have pretty favorable course loads, and a lot of these people also teach classes that are capped at low, low levels. I'm teaching a large introductory-level lecture-hall class that's capped at 200, an introductory ethics class that's capped at 55, and an upper-division ethics class that's capped at 35. So I guess I'm kind of jealous of the people who are teaching two classes to a total of under 50 students.

--Mr. Zero

Worth Repeating (Pluralist's Guide)

2011-08-08T08:30:00.000-07:00

Although there is a clear sense in which this is old news, I bring it up because I don't want this discussion to die. It seems to me that it is very important to have good information about departments available for prospective graduate students. It also seems to me that the people who put up websites claiming to provide this information have a responsibility to do a good job, to explain how they came up with the information, and to be willing to respond to criticism and to act on suggestions for improvement. And it seems to me that the editors of the "Pluralist's" Guide are not living up to these responsibilities.

In comments in the Gender, Race and Philosophy post in which Linda Alcoff presented some information concerning and momentariliy defended the methodology behind the Climate Guide, anonymous graduate student writes:

Dear Professors Alcoff, Taylor, and Wilkerson [editors of the Pluralist's Guide]:

The sarcastic last comment here [this one] does not, in my view, dispense you, the authors of the "climate for women" section, from addressing in detail the several very serious questions and worries that were brought to the table by the previous commenters. I am sure that I am not the only one to find it very troublesome that there is neither any attempt on your part to defend the "climate for women" section its current form - which, as the many thoughtful comments above have shown, would be a difficult feat - nor the slightest admisssion of the insufficiency and indeed indefensibility of the section as it stands at this time.

The only conclusion I (and, I imagine, many others) am able to draw from the exasperating refusal by you, the authors of the "pluralist's guide", to engage even in the most rudimentary way with serious criticism is that despite the title of your "report" you are not in fact guided by the concern that informs the comments in this thread - the climate for women in philosophy - but rather by an undisclosed private agenda that abuses this concern as a cover.

I guess I'm not willing to draw any specific conclusions about why the authors of the Climate Guide haven't withdrawn it, or edited it in such a way as to acknowledge its many methodological and factual problems, or explained how it was compiled, or even evinced comprehension of these problems. But I will say that it gets sadder and sadder with each passing day.

--Mr. Zero

The Sisterhood of the Traveling Philosophical Conclusions

2011-08-05T08:32:00.000-07:00

In what has become a widely-discussed piece in the New York Times (among philosophers, anyway), Stanley Fish says,

In short, the conclusions reached in philosophical disquisitions do not travel. They do not travel into contexts that are not explicitly philosophical (as seminars, academic journals, and conferences are), and they do not even make their way into the non-philosophical lives of those who hold them. The fact that you might give one set of answers rather than another to standard philosophical questions will say nothing about how you will behave when something other than a point of philosophy is in dispute.

For one thing, I think this is somewhat of an overstatement. I've had students tell me that my ethics classes, in particular, have affected their thinking in what they saw as behaviorally significant ways. I've had students tell me that discussions of animal cruelty have caused them to adopt vegetarianism, or at least to moderate their meat-eating or to seek out less cruel alternatives. I've had students tell me that discussions of abortion have caused them to see a complicated (and interesting) set of issues where before they saw an easily-resolved black-and-white issue with a bunch of moral monsters on the other side, and that this would cause them to be more sympathetic and nicer to people with whom they disagree. I've had students tell me that discussions of Rachels & Rachels on cultural relativism or Socrates on the divine command theory have caused them to seriously rethink their initial confidence in these moral outlooks (even if they didn't ultimately reject them).

Now, I don't see it as my role to try to talk people out of stuff like eating meat, conservative positions on abortion, cultural relativism, or divine command theory. I see it as my role to try to talk people into having more thoughtful views on these things. It is one thing, for example, to be pro-life because you believe that life begins at the moment of conception and that anyone who disagrees is depraved and that anyone who would act on that disagreement is a cold-blooded murderer; it is another to believe that abortion is wrong, but whether it is wrong depends on when personhood, not life, begins, and that reasonable people disagree about when that is and whether the status of the fetus is relevant at all. I think that's a significant change; I think that this change is likely to result in behavioral differences where the rubber meets the road; and I think that's a victory for philosophy.

Fish is, of course, addressing Paul Boghossian's recent discussion of cultural relativism. Fish says, "When it’s not the game of philosophy that is being played, but some other — energy policy, trade policy, debt reduction, military strategy, domestic life — grand philosophical theses like “there are no moral absolutes” or “yes there are” will at best be rhetorical flourishes; they will not be genuine currency or do any decisive work. Believing or disbelieving in moral absolutes is a philosophical position, not a recipe for living." In this way he (seems to) argue that there is a clear and important sense in which the results of philosophical reflections (or, at least, those concerning moral absolutes versus moral relativism) do not matter.

My experience in the classroom suggests a different lesson. It seems to me that people who cultural accept relativism typically do this without thinking carefully about what the view says or what its moral implications are. It seems to me that when certain counterintuitive implications are brought to their attention, they typically realize that they do not accept them, and that they did not in fact accept relativism in the first place. They might (initially) describe themselves as cultural relativists and they might claim to accept the central thesis of relativism, but on reflection they don't accept any of its consequences and they think the main argument for the view is badly mistaken. They were just trying to be nice, and they thought that adopting cultural relativism was the nice thing to do. In my experience, it is unusual for people (even people who describe themselves as cultural relativists) to deny that there are moral absolutes (even if, in certain contexts, they would say they do), and this is why you don't normally have to say that there are moral absolutes, and why you don't normally get anywhere when you do. It's not that the conclusion didn't travel; it's that the conclusion traveled without everybody noticing and is there already. Philosophical conclusions travel incognito.

We saw something like this here in the late spring/early summer. In a very long comment thread, a commenter persistently argued that philosophy, unlike empirical science, doesn't generate genuine knowledge (or something like that), but would persistently and at every turn defend this thesis by making reference to what were clearly non-empirical philosophical theses that were essential to the position.

And finally, if Fish is really right that philosophical conclusions don't travel, isn't that more of a criticism of the people in whom they fail to travel than the philosophical conclusions themselves?

--Mr. Zero

LaTeX: 1 Year Later

2011-08-04T08:16:00.000-07:00

I've been using LaTeX for a little over a year now. I've written a few papers with it, I've used it for classroom materials, and my job application materials were mostly written in LaTeX last year. Now that I'm a somewhat experienced user, I thought that it might be helpful to collect my thoughts about it. Is it worth the effort to switch?

First, some things I continue to dislike about it:

Window proliferation. For every document you're working on, my TeX program (TeXShop for Mac) produces as many as three windows: one for the text document, one for the typeset PDF "output" document, and a "console" window in which the program shows its work as it produces the PDF from the text file. That's fine if you're just working on a paper, or whatever. But if you've got a paper going, and a lecture for your intro class, and a handout to go with that lecture, and a lecture for ethics, and a handout for that lecture, you've got a lot of windows open. I try to be vigilant about closing consoles, but there's another problem in the vicinity...
Document proliferation. The process of creating nice-looking PDFs involves the creation of a bunch of auxiliary files. And if you forget to use the console to trash them before you close it, it's a (minor) pain in the ass to get rid of them all. And if your document contains a bibliography, you need those auxiliary files.
Certain things take longer, because you have to learn how to do them. Make an abstract; make a numbered list that starts at 5; making a space show up in the PDF after '\textonehalf'; stuff like that. These are all things that I figured out how to do without a huge amount of trouble, but they wouldn't have been any trouble at all in Word.
All in all, these are pretty minor annoyances, though.

What do I like about it? Why have I stuck with it?

It's not Microsoft Word. Whenever I am asked to open an MS Word document, I whine a little inside. "Do I have to?" I cannot stand MS Word. I particularly hate it now that everything is a "Docx" file and I'm still using Word from '04 or whatever. Word's conversion process makes opening and saving documents take forever. And causes the program to crash. It sucks.
It is free. Subsequent software updates have been free. New versions of the software are also free.
It makes PDFs, not Word documents. Everybody has at least one free PDF reader. No BS conversion to make my old-ass version of Word read your newfangled "docx" document. Nearly every computer in the world has the software for reading PDFs already installed.
The documents do look awfully nice. They do not look like they were made with free software. This isn't such a big deal with paper drafts, but I like to hand out nice, professional-looking handouts in my classes and (especially) at conferences. And I like my application materials to look polished and professional.
Bibliographies. I love--love--not worrying about bibliographies. I love not having to remember to add each reference to the bibliography whenever I add one. (Although you do have to keep your bibliography file up-to-date. But that's helpful, too.) I love not having to remember to take the reference out of the bibliography if I delete the reference in the main text. (Although that happens less frequently.) And I really, really love not having to mess with the bibliographic format. Mind wants it one way but Phil Review wants it another? No problem whatsoever. (Not that I've had this exact problem.)
- A minor problem here is that you have to keep track of your bibliographic entries in a separate program (I use ~~BibTex~~ BibDesk, which comes with the TexShop bundle). But I find that helpful, too. Before LaTeX I was using a spreadsheet to keep track of the bibliographic information and physical locations of my many, many photocopied journal articles. BibTex does the same thing, but better.
Symbols really are easier. You might have to google it, but the symbols you want are there and easy to implement. The symbols menu situation in MS Word is really tragic. There are a large number of different "symbols" menu/tables, some of which are very long, and none of which has all the symbols you want. So if you want a "times" symbol, you're looking in one table; if you want a universal quantifier, you're looking in another; and if you want, say, a curly greater-than-or-equal-to, you might just end up copying it out of some webpage.
Last year I didn't like way LaTeX handles quotation marks, footnotes, word counts, and the general user interface. I am mostly over these problems now. The TexShop word count application sort of sucks because it counts the words in your preamble and stuff. But if you know how many words there are in your preamble, you can work around this. And it doesn't count the stuff you've "percent signed," so that's nice.
Speaking of which, the percent sign thing comes in really handy when you're "conference-izing" a paper. (Quick note of explanation: when you put a '%' in front of some text in LaTeX, the program ignores whatever comes after it until you hit "return." This comes in handy when you want to write a little note to yourself, or block a command in the preamble, or whatever.) In this way, you can cut out large quantities of text from the main PDF document without deleting it altogether. And the word count function ignores it even though it's technically still there. And so you can just as easily put it back.

So, what we've got here is a free, highly functional word-processing program that makes nice-looking pdf documents and makes your bibliographies in whatever style you want for you, by itself, without you having to do anything other than keep track of the stuff you've been reading.

--Mr. Zero

When Will the JFP come back?

2011-08-02T06:28:00.000-07:00

In comments, anon 1:27 writes,

Speaking of the new APA website, is there any word when the JFP will be back online?

None that I'm aware of. Anybody know the answer to this one?

--Mr. Zero

P.S. The new website is worse than the old one, difficult as that is to believe.

The bibliophile's lament

2011-08-01T08:46:00.001-07:00

I really, really like books. Once I have a book in my possession, I tend never to give it up. Unless I specifically hate it for some reason. I have a lot of books I read decades ago, and may never read again. Paperback books that don't have any substantial monetary value. I have multiple copies of books I really love, like Ulysses. If I see a used copy of it, I'll buy it. That's especially true of philosophy books. Cheap, used philosophy book? I'll buy it. A library sale is a little bit of heaven.

So, I have a lot of books. e-Books are not a solution for me. I have a thing about books, and paper, and the whole sensory experience of holding and reading a book. I like bookshelves groaning with books. My dream house would have one of those huge libraries with the ladders for climbing up to the books.

I have to move in a few weeks. The movers charge by weight, so it behooves me to release some of these books. I'm kind of stuck on the philosophy books. I tend to think that as a philosopher, I ought to have a well-rounded library of philosophy books. I'm not likely to ever teach Wittgenstein, or Schopenhauer, but I'm kind of loathe to get rid of those books. I have multiple editions of certain textbooks in my AOS. Should I get rid of those and just keep the most recent? What about my six copies of Kant's Groundwork? They're all different, and some are out of print. Or my two copies of the Critique -- really different translations. Some of these books I've been carting around for decades, since I was an undergrad. Ditch the Republic paperback since I have the Complete Works? But it was the first philosophy book I read in college! Move it? or lose it?

What do you do with your old philosophy books, fellow philosophers?

~zombie

A Better Job Market This Fall?

2011-08-01T06:45:00.000-07:00

In a discussion over at Leiter that never really took off, it was pointed out that this article at Inside Higher Ed suggests that the job market in political science seems to be rebounding a little, and wondered whether that's good news for philosophy.

I think it is wisest to maintain an "I'll believe it when I see it" approach to this sort of thing. It seems to me that we've had moderately good news about the economy over the past several years (or, at least, less bad economic news) that has failed to materialize as substantial gains in tenure-track philosophy job market.

Another thing that the political science data highlights is that it would be nice if the APA would keep detailed job-market statistics. It would be nice to know what's happening in the job market from year to year. As it is, you have to count entries in the JFP and on the Leiter jobs thread.

--Mr. Zero

What if Nous & PPR Published More?

2011-07-28T09:50:00.000-07:00

For the past few years, Nous and PPR have stopped accepting submissions for about half the year. This is, as they say, because they have such a backlog and their acceptance rate is so minuscule that it doesn't make sense to accept submissions all year. I wonder why they don't start publishing more issues. If they published bi-monthly instead of quarterly, they could accept more articles and have a shorter backlog. And if they have such a backlog, and they get so many submissions, and their acceptance rate is so small, the could do this without reducing the overall quality of the journals. What would be the problem with that?

--Mr. Zero

"Strongly Recommended" for What, Again?

2011-07-26T07:20:00.000-07:00

The University of Oregon is on the "strongly recommended" list on the Pluralist's Guide's Climate for Women page. But by now it is well-known that this department's climate for women shows clear signs of being terrible: their undergraduate program director is alleged to have made sexual advances toward female undergraduates and to have groped female undergraduates in his office, and another, "feminist" faculty member is alleged to have orchestrated a coverup of this information so as not to interfere with their being recognized for their friendliness to women. As far as I can see, these charges have not been disputed. (If they have, please let me know.) Why hasn't this school been removed from the list? The "Pluralists" removed Oklahoma from the "needs improvement" list almost immediately when it became clear that they had been working to improve the climate. I mean, if there was ever evidence of a chilly and inhospitable climate for women, that's gotta be it.

But as of this morning, it's still up.

--Mr. Zero

They didn't Really Do That, Did They?

2011-07-22T07:22:00.000-07:00

I've been following with interest this discussion concerning the Pluralist's Guide to Philosophy Programs's "climate" ratings, which contains "information" concerning the degree to which various philosophy departments are hospitable to women. What seems to me to be the most interesting discussion is taking place in comments here.

What happened was, Linda Alcoff, Paul Taylor, and William Wilkerson have edited a ranking of philosophy departments that is supposed to compete with the PGR, and whose advantage over the PGR is that this ranking is more "pluralistic." The pluralistic rankings also contains some informatin about the climate for women, in the form of two lists: one for "strongly recommended" departments; another for departments that "need improvement." These lists are fishy. For one thing, the "strongly recommended" list is currently seven times longer than the "needs improvement" list. Based on what I've been led to believe about the actual climate for women in this profession, that seems like it couldn't possibly be an accurate representation of how things are.

For another thing, it seems that they didn't actually ask anybody at any of the "needs improvement" departments about the climates for women in those departments. At least, that's how Leiter puts it. But I think, if you read Linda Alcoff's comments in the Gender, Race and Philosophy thread, it's closer to the truth to say that they have no idea how the data was collected. The general procedure for collecting data for the Pluralist Guide was to ask experts to rate departments along the relevant dimension; this procedure was also followed for the climate ratings. We don't know who was asked to rate the climate at, say, Rutgers (who have defended themselves with the most vigor), though presumably the organizers do. It does seem clear that nobody who is currently affiliated with Rutgers, or who was until recently, was consulted. And Alcoff seems to have admitted that she has no idea how the people who rated Rutgers (e.g.) got their information (see the parenthetical remark in point #1 here). It seems to me, then, that we have no way of knowing whether the data was reliable, up-to-date, and paints an accurate picture of the climates of these departments.

This is really shameful. It's sort of unbelievable that this is actually happening. The "Pluralists" have published a web page saying that (e.g.) Rutgers is one of three departments whose climate for women needs to be improved--which strongly suggests that Rutgers (et al.) has a particularly chilly and inhospitable climate for women--and they didn't ask anybody at Rutgers whether this was true, or whether they were doing anything to improve the climate. This can also be seen in the way that Oklahoma was initially on the list but was removed when it came to light that they had been actively working to improve the climate there; it has been pointed out that the Oklahoma incident also suggests that the editors hadn't done their homework. Alcoff has made a bunch of excuses about how difficult it is to collect good data on a topic like this, but I don't see how that justifies the use of bad data.

I mean, seriously. Did they really do that?

--Mr. Zero

The King's Dean's Speech Email

2011-07-21T05:14:00.000-07:00

I got an email from my Dean last week. The email went out to all of the College's non-permanent faculty and says that we might get a raise starting in the Fall. I was like, that sounds pretty good. The email goes on to point out that there are potential problems, as of course we all knew it would. For one thing, the legislature could put the kibosh on it. For another thing, the raise is contingent on whether the school meets its enrollment goals. The Dean concludes the email by pointing out that we all have an interest in ensuring that the students have an obstacle-free path to enrollment.

I realize, of course, that most Deans are incompetent psychopaths. But what the hell is that supposed to mean? Does the Dean imagine that the temporary faculty spend their summers putting obstacles in the paths of students who are trying to to enroll? What influence could he possibly think I have over this process?

The more I think about this, the more angry I get. I teach a lot of classes--many more than my colleagues (this calendar year, I will teach 10 more classes than a typical TT person in my department; this figure includes summer school courses, which are elective). I work hard to do a good job. My evaluations are above average for the department and the College, I get good feedback on my classroom visits, and many of our best majors have come to the department through my intro classes. This school makes such extensive use of non-permanent faculty that it could not function without us and our hard work. And this guy emails us not to say, thanks for all the hard work that keeps this institution of higher education running, but the vaguely threatening you better not get in the way of us meeting our enrollment goals or you won't get a raise.

--Mr. Zero

Multiple Guess

2011-07-19T06:10:00.000-07:00

I am on record as being opposed to multiple choice philosophy tests. But suppose I have been tapped to teach a large introduction to philosophy course that will meet in a humongous lecture hall, and that I won't have any TAs or help with the grading, but I will have 150 students in this one ginormous class. I'm thinking that multiple choice might be the way to go. But I still sort of worry that these things are frowned upon. Suppose I get a nice interview at the APA, and the committee says, "I see you've got a humongous lecture class here. How'd you do it?" If I say, "Multiple choice tests..." will I be fucked? Or will the people be understanding and merciful? I plan to work in some in-class writing, but this wil have to be highly informal. What do the Smokers think?

--Mr. Zero

The Best Way to Use a VAP?

2011-07-13T07:16:00.000-07:00

I was looking through the JFP Summer Web Ads the other day, and saw this gem from Seattle Pacific:

7. SEATTLE PACIFIC UNIVERSITY, SEATTLE, WASHINGTON. Philosophy: One-year, full-time, Visiting Assistant Professor position, available September 2011. Qualifications: Ph.D. or ABD. AOS: Open. A successful candidate must be able to teach all or most of the following: ethical theory, social ethics, history of ethics, aesthetics, and a general education course that focuses on questions at the intersection of philosophy, science, and religion...

It seems to me that whoever wrote this ad is thinking about visiting professors wrong. It seems to me that your basic 1-year non-renewable visiting assistant professor ought not to be asked to teach a weird interdisciplinary general education course. It seems ot me that because VAPs teach much more and get paid much less than permanent faculty, have little or no research support, are on the tenure-track job market, and must publish constantly in order to be successful on the job market, it is not fair to assign a course like that to a yet-to-be-identified VAP. You should be trying to make the VAP's courseload as manageable as possible.

It also seems to me that it's prudentially unwise to run an ad like that. It seems to me that the pool of applicants for visiting positions is much smaller than the pool for permanent positions or even the pool for visiting positions with the potential to be extended beyond the first year. It is my understanding that 30 or 40 applications from qualified candidates is a huge number for a position like this. So if an ability to teach a interdisciplinary course that focuses on questions at the intersection of science, philosophy, and religion means anything other than a willingness to do it, you might be cutting your potential applicant pool down to zero. You're looking for someone who has, or is close to having, a Ph.D. in philosophy, who has experience teaching ethics and aesthetics, who doesn't already have a job, who is willing to spend her own money to move to Seattle for a year, and who has experience teaching this highly specific interdisciplinary course. I can't imagine there are a bunch of people like that.

--Mr. Zero

Oh, That's What It Is

2011-07-10T17:08:00.000-07:00

I know I shouldn't do this, but I was reading What's Wrong With the World again. In a post that reacts to the recent legalization of same-sex marriage in New York, Lydia McGrew (who lives in Michigan) explains how same-sex marriage is harmful to straight people in other states who might otherwise be thought of as disinterested parties by imagining a dialogue between a "conservative" and an advocate of the "homosexual agenda." I was interested in this because I have always wondered what the big deal was. I always thought that if you don't believe in same-sex marriage, you should decline to get same-sex married and mind your own business; if other people want to get same-sex married, that's not your business.^* Anyways, here's the dialogue:

Homosexual agenda advocate: What do you conservatives care? How does it harm you? Why are you trying to control other people?

Conservatives: Here are 352 examples of the fact that when this stuff is in place, your side gets to control other people--namely, people who think like me--and punish us for not agreeing with you. That's why, just for starters.

HAA--Well, those are all _reasonable_. If people choose to deal with the public, they should _have_ to go along with this. And when we've passed homosexual "marriage," then it really _is_ legal marriage, and it's just acknowledging _reality_ to call it "marriage," so people should be forced to do so.

Conservative: I rest my case.

HAA--[Silence]

To be clear, according to McGrew, same-sex marriage is harmful to the conservative because if same-sex marriage is legal then the conservative will be forced against her will to acknowledge that it is technically true that same-sex marriage exists. There's harm, and then there's harm.

--Mr. Zero

^* I realize it's not that simple. You can't argue that e.g. slavery should be legal as long as you have the right not to sell yourself into slavery if you don't want to, and if somebody else wants to sell herself into slavery then you should mind your own business. Certain freedoms, such as the freedom from slavery, ought to be protected no matter what. But that idea is instructive in itself.

Music For Working

2011-07-06T15:00:00.000-07:00

I feel like I've touched on this topic before, but I couldn't find where, so what the hell.

I work better if I have music going. But I don't work very well if the music has words I might accidentally get interested in or listen to, so it has to be instrumental music. It also has to be somewhat uptempo--it can't be sad or slow or else I will go to sleep. And it can't be boring or particularly repetitive, for the same reason.

I have tried what uninitiated rubes like me call "classical" music, but I find i am not familiar enough with its traditions or distinctions to weed out the stuff that won't work. I know a few pieces that work for me, but only a few, and so it starts to get repetitive. And in this context, researching the music defeats the purpose.

I find that first-quintet-era Miles Davis is about right. The music is generally not slow or boring, and that group (and its cousins) made a hell of a lot of recordings, so there's a lot of variety.

What do the Smokers do?

--Mr. Zero

Once Upon a Time in Academia

2011-07-05T10:21:00.000-07:00

In comments here, "40yearsold, noTT" promised a story. Here it is:

Dear Readers:

I'm a 40 year old philosophy instructor without tenure (I'm working as an adjunct this year in a very fine department, but this may be the last year I can afford to continue in the discipline). The odd thing about my story is that I actually gave up a secure teaching position last year and, despite the fact that I was unsuccessful in all 85 of the TT and VAP competitions I sought last year, I find I cannot regret my decision to leave my former job.

For reasons of discretion, I haven't had the ability to discuss my choice with very many people at all. I'd be interested to hear what the rest of you smokers think of it, and how many other people have found themselves in similar circumstances.

Here's a summary of what happened. Many years ago, a local community college was transformed into a four-year college. More recently, it became a university. However, owing to a strange series of events and a couple of loopholes, it managed to do this without introducing a system of tenure or even of faculty titles. Instructors spend their first two years on a sort of probation, at the end of which they become 'regularized' rather than tenured. Once one is regulated, one's work is never reviewed again. Some smokers may recognize this as standard in the community college system. The faculty at this university strongly support the view that a lack of tenure, etc. makes the school more "collegial."

A few years ago, this institution's philosophy chair initiated a process to start a philosophy major. As part of this process, nearby schools were invited to give input. The response of at least one nearby research university was that the proposed major would seriously disadvantage its graduates. Among other things, nobody in the department was current or even competent in mainstream analytical philosophy. Hence, a position was created by the department to rebut this criticism. This position was advertised, in classic two-year college style, only internally and for a very brief period. For various reasons, I learned of this fact and won the 'competition'. A week after my hire, I helped the department make their final case for the major, assuring the skeptics that we would all keep current and bring students to a high standard. The major was granted and I began work.

One thing I didn't realize until a little later was that many of my new colleagues had felt rather put out by the suggestion that the work they had previously been doing was inadequate for a major. Another thing I took for granted was that my colleagues were being sincere with me in saying that they were excited to have such a dedicated teacher join their ranks. That error led to my undoing.

In the years that followed, I devoted myself entirely to the department. I ran a club; I held extended office hours; I ran extracurricular reading groups; I initiated a colloquium series that brought 10-12 visiting philosophers to the campus each year; and I worked with my students on papers that they might later present at nearby undergraduate conferences. Whenever one of our students had a paper accepted, I would organize a student carpool to the conference. When students wanted to study areas of analytic philosophy beyond our meagre offerings, I would run a directed study section. All this left me no time for publications, but I imagined that my place at the school would be assured due to my strong enrollments and reviews.

However, my former colleagues blamed me for the fact that their enrollments were sometimes very poor. Just to be clear: that isn't my interpretation of their view, but exactly what they said to me at meetings (even in front of student representatives). They literally told me that, since none of them had any wish to take part in extracurricular activities, attend conferences, or keep current with the literature, my openly doing so was making them "look bad" and creating an imbalance in the way we and our courses were valued by students. I was asked to cease and desist. I took this up with the dean, but unfortunately the dean turned out to be a strong advocate of the mediocracy and a close personal friend of many of my colleauges.

When my colleagues cancelled the directed studies sections I had planned to offer, there was a student outcry. How were they to have a chance at following their older peers in presenting at conferences, getting into grad school, and generally getting the sort of education others had been receiving? And why shouldn't other measures be taken to increase enrollments, such as making the senior member of my department actually attend all his classes (he often admitted with a smile to frequently cancelling classes or exams or showing up an hour or more late)? These questions made my colleagues feel more sure that I was the spawn of Satan. As a result, they took several measures.

First, they told the phil. majors that it was sheer lunacy to think that one needed any special guidance to be great at philosophy. They claimed that one of their graduates had recently been accepted into a top 20 PhD program (what actually happened was that a student had merely audited a course at the top department in question in order to qualify for admission elsewhere). They also claimed, falsely, that no doubts of any kind had been raised about the major during the qualification process.

Then, they had a rather confrontational meeting with me, apparently styled after an AA intervention. They warned me that, by presenting students in class with the central metaphor of climbing a mountain through taking more and more advanced courses, I was damaging the harmony of the department. Iinstead, I was to begin to present philosophy courses as a collection of 'foothills', none higher than any other. Second, I was blamed for bringing students to a particular undergraduate conference from which some returned complaining that they had been unable to join any discussions on advanced topics despite having taken upper-level courses in the relevant subdiscipline (the instructor of the core course in question seems to have used the course as a platform for his own religious views, and not to have introduced any of the technical details or even the terminology of the field). These complaints reached the chair via the student representative, and I was asked to give them a list of all the 'suspects' -- that is, all the students who had attended the conference -- so that they could ferret out the malcontents. I refused to play ball.

It was made clear to me that I had to choose between conforming to the wishes of my colleagues (which would have included curtailing all extracurricular activities, being complicit in whatever claims those colleagues wished to make about the successes of former graduates, etc.) or else being branded as a troublemaker and ultimately running into institutional trouble. I saw this as a choice between egoism and principle, and went with principle.

I think I had had some fantasies about my leaving making more of a difference than it did. After I left, some of the core students switched majors or migrated to other schools. But many of them are still there, and the department is presumably recruiting new students as before. These new students will have little, if any, exposure to contemporary philosophy (nearly all the upper-level courses currently on offer focus on the reading of novels!), so I suspect the major will continue for years to come, just as it would have had I not left. To some extent, that makes me wonder whether sacrificing my career was worth it. At the same time, though, I feel glad I took a stand.

Anyway, that's the story. I wonder what other people think of it, whether others have had similar experiences, and what they did. Thanks.

"Did Not Attend" Grades

2011-06-30T09:23:00.000-07:00

A friend of mine teaches at a university where one of your grade-assignment options is "DNA," which stands for "did not attend." If you assign a student a grade of DNA, you have to specify the last date on which they attended class. If that date is early enough in the term, the student is retroactively withdrawn from the class. I don't know how common this is, but I don't think this is an option at my school. At least, nobody told me it was at the bullshit new faculty orientation thing I had to attend.

One immediate drawback to the DNA grade is that you have to know that the student never attended, and you have to know when the student stopped. For a number of reasons, I don't collect that information in any detailed or rigorous way.

Why would you assign this grade? Apparently, the DNA grade can fuck up the student's financial aid. You have to maintain a certain credit load in oder to get certain scholarships or student loans. A grade of DNA retroactively reduces the student's courseload. This can make the student retroactively ineligible for financial aid for that semester. Obviously, this can cause all sorts of problems for the student. The DNA grade can be worse than an F in profound ways.

I guess the logic is that Fs are for people who try and fail; DNAs are for people who blow off the entire class. It is, apparently, much, much worse to blow off the class than it is to make a failing attempt to complete it.

I kind of have a problem with this. I see why you'd want a complete failure to attend class to have certain consequences for the student.^* I see why you'd want there to be a failing grade on the transcript. I see why you'd want the medical school or the nursing school or whoever to know it's there. I see why you'd want it to be academically troublesome for the student, and insofar as these academic troubles cause personal troubles, it seems to me that the personal troubles are sort of warranted. You didn't attend class all semester and now your parents are upset with you? That seems right to me. You didn't attend class all semester and now you're not getting into nursing school? That seems right to me, too. These things don't seem to me to count against assigning the F. They seem like the negative consequences rightfully associated with earning an F.

But I guess I think getting the student's financial aid yanked is going too far. That consequence seems far worse than what is deserved.

What do the Smokers think?

--Mr. Zero

^* I am assuming that there are no mitigating or extenuating circumstances.

Crito: What Really Happened.

2011-06-27T12:03:00.000-07:00

via Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal.

--Mr. Zero

Are There Academics Who are Satisfied with the Way Their Discipline is Portrayed in the Media?

2011-06-27T07:55:00.000-07:00

Every so often, something will show up in the news, such as last week's Slate piece on Nozick's Anarchy, State and Utopia, or anything that is ever on the New York Times's Stone blog, and people get all pissed off about how any writing for the general public that has any philosophical content whatsoever guaranteed to be absolutely terrible. How we need to change this. How if the APA knew what it was doing we wouldn't be in this mess. Or whatever. Maybe I just made that last one up.

But I was thinking about the time last year when they found "arsenic-based" life-forms. Or earlier in 2010 when they found evidence of life on Mars. Or this Ph.D. comic. And it seems to me that scientists are usually pretty annoyed with the quality of science reporting. And engineers, too. So I was kind of wondering if there is any academic field whose practitioners are generally content with the level of quality of the media reports involving its area of study or making use of its results.

--Mr. Zero

Inbox: Community College Career Poison?

2011-06-25T10:09:00.000-07:00

An anonymous correspondent asks:

I've heard several times through the grapevine that accepting a position at a community college is career death poison. Is that right? Right now I have a part-time position at a well-ranked university, but the pay is shite and the possibility of advancement nonexistent. I look at the pay at some community colleges and see that it is double what I make now. Would accepting one of these positions be career suicide, even if only temporary?

My sense of this is that 1. community college jobs involve more teaching and fewer research responsibilities than jobs at four-year colleges, and are a good choice for someone with corresponding career goals; and 2. search committees at four-year colleges will (probably unfairly) hold an employment history at community colleges against you.

What say you, Smokers?

--Mr. Zero

A Former Dick Speaks Out

2011-06-25T09:49:00.000-07:00

In comments here, Former Dick writes,

A little relevant background: I'm a male analytic philosopher and an activist, even a "hard core" analytic philosopher. I'm now a few years post-PhD in a TT job. I have always thought of myself as very liberal and progressive, particularly with respect to gender and feminist causes.

But here's the thing: in my youth, particularly right at the beginning of grad school, I used to be kind of a dick about it. (I'm using that gendered insult on purpose.)

One thing I would do is uncharitably assume that everybody else was on the wrong course with their activism (perhaps because I had just learned about the problem, and the problem still existed despite some people having worked on it a long time already.). But many of these problems are very hard to solve, and there are no easy or silver bullet solutions. Also, as you learn more about the problem, you come to see greater complexity regarding the possible solutions.

Another thing I would do is start out as if (or perhaps genuinely) in sympathy with my interlocutor's cause, but I would be a total jerk in how I participated in discussions. I would get all "analytic philosopher" on people, but in the bad sense, not in the good (clear argumentation) sense. I would think that I was just trying to be clear, but what I was trying to do was win an argument, rather than have a discussion. So I would uncharitably construe what people were saying; I would trot out straw men; I would whine about how people hadn't actually *responded* to my pages long argument; I would use aggressive rhetoric (calling ideas "terrible" or "ridiculous" or "stupid" and starting sentences with "Look,..."); and I would spend a lot of time numbering premises and claims while missing the most important points, or while missing what people were really getting at (even if they hadn't said *precisely* that).

Another thing I would do is act as if I knew more than I did. (The discussion of how conferences come up with their non-keynote speakers--this fantastic world of pure blind review!--was particularly glaring in this regard.) Sometimes you have to hang out in a world for a while before you know how things work, and before you know how they might be changed.

The end result of all this: I was a "good guy" or so I thought, but I found that people would tire of talking to me about these things.

I wish I could go back and be less of a dick. One thing I've realized is that most people in this philosophy world are *very* smart. Maybe in high school and college you could assume that you were right and they were wrong (you were thinking clearly and they were muddled and misguided), but you can probably stop with that implicit assumption. Or at least assume that the other person is more of a peer than (just) a person who can learn from your brilliance.

I know, I know, you'll deny that you've done anything wrong. PB will say things like "I was interested in thinking through new, creative, and sometimes subtle ways of making professional philosophy more hospitable for women." But were you really? Why did you assume that others weren't? Even when they have spent years--real years!--of their lives doing exactly that?

Just FYI, calling out someone like Sally Haslanger in this context, in the way you did, just highlights all of the obvious dickishness. I don't think anyone is into hero worship here, but she's someone who has *obviously* done a ton for women in philosophy, so even if you think another direction is the way forward, have some respect!

It seems to me that this sort of thing happens a lot. I see some of this in myself. Worth thinking about.

--Mr. Zero

Advice

2011-06-24T06:08:00.000-07:00

via Toothpaste for Dinner. Bummer, dude.

--Mr. Zero

What Do You Do?

2011-06-23T08:45:00.000-07:00

In comments here, Philosophical Boyfriend mentions some concerns his girlfriend, Philosophical Boyfriend's Girlfriend, had about discussions of sexism in philosophy. He writes:

First, she felt that any discussion of sexist incidents in philosophy should focus on _solutions_, not simply on endless, depressing reports of problems. For instance, there was the story of the woman who, after presenting a paper, had a male audience member apologize to her for asking such difficult questions and then _kiss her ear_(!!). If that sort of thing is going on, then (my girlfriend said) what is most important is for people to sort out good methods for _dealing with_ that sort of thing. What should one do if that happens? What sorts of ways of acting and presenting would make it least likely for that to happen? How should other people present react? Discussions of these things would be extremely useful; but she finds them almost nowhere. And that, she said, seems really defeatist: it's as though people are saying 'hey, this crap happens, so I guess it's better to leave the profession', which of course plays into the hands of the truly sexist.

Second, she really wanted to see more dialogue between those who believe that there are problems facing women and those who don't. Part of the reason was that she wanted to know whether all the negativity she was feeling was really justified; but much of her motivation was so that strategies could be developed for dealing with doubters if there are good grounds for despair in the present climate. She felt that a closer engagement with these doubters would have the dual function of helping to persuade them of the extent of the problem and of removing their ability to feel their views are being censored or attacked merely in the name of political correctness.

And third, as I mentioned before, she thought a positive way to move forward would be to break the association in people's minds between philosophers who are feminists, women philosophers, and people doing so-called 'feminist philosophy'.

I pointed out that the What It's Like blog has a sister blog about What We're Doing About It, which has been far less successful. They've had a much harder time getting people post constructive strategies for dealing with the kind of shit on display in the what it's like blog.

I also mentioned that I suspect that these difficulties are, at least in part, a result of the fact that the kinds of sexism that seem to be most commonly experienced nowadays is subtle rather than overt, and this makes it especially difficult to combat. People do a bunch of little things that serve to belittle and exclude, where the individual impact of each thing is potentially minuscule, but where the overall impact of them, taken as a whole, can be very significant.

I also admitted that I don't have what I would regard as a concrete helpful suggestion.

CrabbyAbby posted a helpful list:

Philosophical boyfriend (and affiliated philosopher) -- I think there has been some really fantastic things spring out of the discussions of the sexism that is rampant in our discipline. A few things off the top of my head include:

(a) the proposal that philosophers known to be sexist be shunned from participating in conferences. (An Inside Higher Ed article here)

(b) an on-going campaign on the Feminist Philosophers blog to call out conferences and anthologies that under-represent women in the discipline. This is, I take it, meant not only to show how women are under-represented but is also meant to be an act of social shaming for those organizing those conferences and anthologies. (Here's one such blog entry)

(c) A discussion, again on Feminist Philosophers, about how to make conferences parent-friendly. (Here's one such blog entry about it)

(d) A new mentoring program in place for untenured women in philosophy.

And I think there is also a renewed awareness that we need to come up with other solutions to the sexism. While I'm a young philosopher, it seems like the discipline is, more than ever, recognizing that there is a problem and thinking, collectively, about how to respond. Which is itself an important development. (Actually, I worry that I'm being overly optimistic about this.)

But all of this needs to happen alongside the accounts that we see on 'What it's Like' and other such blogs. We can't stop telling our stories of sexism and being open to hearing the stories of others. Why? Well, (1) because there are still people who doubt that the discipline is sexist at all; (2) because those sorts of stories offer a level of solidarity and support to other women (and men) in the discipline; (3) because they can be cathartic for those who submit stories, as an important way to work through traumatic events is discussing it with others; (4) because the accounts also help us think about new ways to combat the sexism in our discipline. Indeed, it is also useful so that those who think about going into philosophy have a clear idea of the state of the discipline.

What would you add, Smokers?

--Mr. Zero

This Is What I'm Talking About

2011-06-22T07:52:00.000-07:00

I received an email last night from the author of an article in a forthcoming issue of the APA's newsletter on Feminism and Philosophy, about the changes to the comment policy. She writes:

In light of Mr. Zero's change to the comment policy, I thought I'd point out that an article I have written for the APA's Feminism and Philosophy newsletter references some comments that were posted to an old entry in The Philosophy Smoker. I tell the story about my first year on the job market: I turned to your blog for advice about interview attire, and was shaken by some extremely sexist comments posted on your blog -- I lost all my confidence and saw the profession in an extremely different light, due to those comments. In the article, I focus on how the anonymity of the internet relates to our identities as professional philosophers. I thought my experience with anonymous commenters on your blog was a valuable story to tell.

I was planning on alerting you guys to the article once it was published, but I bring it up now to highlight how valuable this recent comment policy change may be. (I also hope you're not upset to see your blog publicized as hosting some really sexist comments. Sorry about that. If it's any consolation, I also point out some really sexist comments on Leiter's blog, too.) Thank you for taking seriously the effect comments on your blog can have. I really enjoy reading (and occasionally commenting in) The Philosophy Smoker, and I think you generally do a really good job dealing with sexism and related issues.

This is exactly what I want to avoid. The thought that someone would come to this blog for help and be hurt by what she found here makes me sick. I believed then and I believe now that there was, at that time, a legitimate reason to permit those comments to be published, in spite of the obvious and serious drawbacks. But things are different now, and there is no longer any legitimate reason to do this. This blog is part of the solution, not part of the problem. This has always been our goal, and the recent change to the comment policy is designed to better accomplish this.

--Mr. Zero

Wacky Student Time: I Demand an Explanation!

2011-06-21T09:15:00.000-07:00

Since the semester ended, I've had the usual number of student emails about grades. One student in particular got his report card and saw that I had assigned him a failing grade, and wrote to demand an explanation. He literally said, "I demand an explanation."

So I looked at the gradebook and saw that he had failed every assignment. Every one.

I imagine a basketball coach angrily approaching the referee after having been declared the loser of the game. "I demand an explanation!" he says, and so the ref lets him know that his team was outscored in all four quarters. How do you earn a passing grade in the class when you fail everything your grade is based on? And then how do you muster the righteous indignation to demand an explanation? Does he really want me to go through all the assignments and for each one tell him how much of his grade was based on it and how much he failed it? Because that's what I did.

In fairness, I should mention that he hadn't picked up any of his exams, so he probably couldn't have been sure that he failed them all. But you have to figure that if you're not in class enough after the first exam to have heard that they had been returned, you're not going to do super awesome on the second one.

And, of course, I've been getting my annual allotment of "now that the semester is over and final grades have been submitted, what can I do to improve my grade" emails.

Happy solstice, everybody!

--Mr. Zero

A Slight Change to the Unofficial Comment Policy

2011-06-20T09:20:00.000-07:00

About a year ago, I wrote this:

a little while ago, in a discussion thread concerning some content I lifted from some other blog, someone left an anonymous comment about the author of that other blog that was about 80% vicious invective (much of which was empirically false) and about 20% actual content. The person who was the topic of this comment wrote to me to ask why we would approve a comment like that, when it was so obviously a personal smear and made such a negligible contribution to the debate.

I told this person that I published the comment mostly because of the 20% of it that I thought was worthwhile. I also said that I think that sunlight is the best disinfectant. I think that there is a huge value in letting the dickheads have their say. I think there is no value at all in maintaining a public illusion that there are no dickheads, and I think there is a tremendous value in allowing the dickheads themselves to demonstrate once and for all that they have nothing of value to contribute to the discussion.

I still think that at the time, that was the right policy, although there were certain things I was not in love with about it, even then. While it seems to me that at that time the advantages involved with demonstrating the existence of sexism and racism in the profession and the demolition of these sexist and racist views outweighed the disadvantages, I never liked publishing those comments, and I never liked the idea that this blog was a place where a person could come to express those views.

Since that time, my views about the value of these comments and the role this blog should play in publicizing these issues have changed. A primary reason is that the What It's Like blog has come along and provides far more compelling evidence of the existence of sexism in our profession than the small number of douchey anonymous comments left here could ever hope to be. A secondary reason is that dickheads have a way of taking the fun out of things. I would rather have a more fun blog with a more restrictive comments policy than a less fun blog with a less restrictive comments policy.

As a result, my comment-approval philosophy has changed. I will not approve douchey comments. I will not approve trollish or needlessly quarrelsome comments. I will not approve comments that make unfounded claims about how easy it is to be a woman in philosophy, or how hard it is to be a white man in philosophy. I will not approve comments that, in my judgement, do not meaningfully add to the discussion or move it forward. I will not approve comments whose purpose is for some anonymous dickhead to piss on other people's good time.

Unless it's funny. Funny comments will get more leeway.

I will try not to be as heavy-handed as the moderators at some other blogs. I will allow people to be mean to each other, as long as they are mean in a way that is on topic and advances the discussion. I will not shut down comments overnight to give people a chance to cool off. But I am going to keep the assholes on a shorter leash.

--Mr. Zero

#1 Loser

2011-06-17T07:35:00.000-07:00

The Philosophy Smoker came in second in a "favorite philosophy blog" poll Leiter conducted over the past few days. Thanks to all the Smokers who voted; thanks to the anonymous commenter who read Leiter's post more carefully than I did and pointed out that the post I posted linking to the poll and encouraging Smokers to vote for us was against the rules and carried a penalty of disqualification; thanks to Leiter for not disqualifying us; thanks to my teammates and the Smokers for making this the second-most-favorite blog other than Leiter's blog among people who read Leiter's blog.

Seriously, thanks, everybody.

--Mr. Zero

The View From Nowhere

2011-06-16T09:44:00.000-07:00

Our recent discussion about the value of philosophy and its relationship to other forms of inquiry made me think of this passage from the introduction of Nagel's The View From Nowhere:

It is natural to feel victimized by philosophy, but this particular defensive reaction goes too far. It is like the hatred of childhood and results in a vain effort to grow up too early, before one has gone through the essential formative confusions and exaggerated hopes that have to be experienced on the way to understanding anything. Philosophy is the childhood of the intellect, and a culture that tries to skip it will never grow up.

There is a persistent temptation to turn philosophy into something less difficult and more shallow than it is. It is an extremely difficult subject, and no exception to the general rule that creative efforts are rarely successful.

--Mr. Zero

What is going on in Abu Dhabi?

2011-06-14T07:56:00.000-07:00

It is widely know, I think, that NYU has had a "regional" campus in Abu Dhabi for a number of years. But I recently learned via the JFP that the Sorbonne has opened a campus there, too. What in the fuck?

--Mr. Zero

Reasons To Stay?

2011-06-13T08:53:00.000-07:00

The following request for reasons to stay in philosophy was posted over at the What it's Like blog and Feminist Philosophers, as well as New APPS:

I am about to start my PhD at an excellent Leiter ranked program. I have a BA and and MA from excellent schools. I have worked closely with ground breaking philosophers in my field. I have published, I have an excellent teaching resume, phenomenal letters of recommendation, and moreover I love my job. I am a good philosopher, and I am thinking about leaving philosophy.

I have been a secretary and a chauffeur. I have been disingenuously promised research assistantships and letters of recommendation, in return for dinner dates and car rides. I have been asked if I was married while my colleagues have been asked what they think. I have been told that I’m both cute and idiotic. I have passed on professional opportunities because I am a woman, and no one would believe that I deserved those opportunities — accepting would make me seem like a slut, since men make it on merit, and women make it in bed. So, ironically, I have been praised as professional for having passed on professional opportunities. I have been the lone woman presenting at the conference, and I have been the woman called a bitch for declining sexual relations with one of the institutions of hosts. I think I have just about covered the gamut of truly egregiously atrocious sexist behaviour. So I just have this one question that I think I need answered: Is the choice between doing philosophy, and living under these conditions, or saving yourself, and leaving the discipline?

This is an open call for reasons to stay.

I would say that since she's just about to start a new Ph.D. program, she should give it at least a year. See how things are in the new department. I think that there's almost no chance that the problems she's experiencing will disappear, but I think there's somewhat of a chance that they'll be at least manageable. Although, I guess I don't know what the chances are that this will happen, and it depends heavily on what levels of sexism she finds "manageable."

But if, after a year or two, she still finds that she's unhappy, I would advise her to follow her instincts and get out. Philosophy is a wonderful way to make a living, but only if it makes you happy. And if the A-holes and D-bags are making you miserable, it is completely sensible to seek an environment in which they are less of a factor. I think this is the best job in the world, but if the constant hum of sexist nitwits was making me chronically miserable, I wouldn't think it was the best job in the world anymore.

So, my advice is, give the new Ph.D. program a fair shake, but if things don't get better in a year or two, get out before you've invested so much time that it'll be hard not to throw good money after bad. But (and I'm not sure I fully understand this idiom) you shouldn't be afraid to throw bad money at philosophy. Or whatever.

--Mr. Zero

Allowing Students to Use First Names

2011-06-06T08:19:00.001-07:00

I haven't been keeping up with What's Wrong With the World as much as I used to, but this item caught my attention. In it, Jeff Culbreath passionately objects to the practice of professors allowing students to call them by their first names. He writes that

it's undeniable that an increasing number of academics in the United States prefer to be called by their first names, viewing honorifics as pretentious and arrogant. The blame for this social calamity can be placed squarely at the feet of Marxist sociology, which more or less permeates society today. For the Marxist everything is reduced to power relationships, including titles and formalities. The use of honorifics exposes power relationships that are not supposed to exist (better translated as "you're not supposed to notice") in our egalitarian society, interfering with the liberal's preferred method changing reality by ignoring it.

The first thing we know about any professor who rejects honorifics is that he defines his own position primarily in terms of power and privilege rather than knowledge or accomplishment, regarding the former as instruments of oppression. He feels embarrassed or guilty about this and prefers not to be reminded by his title. He has little respect for his own achievement, considering it something anyone else could do - which sounds deceptively humble. Behind the facade of humility there are some disturbing corollaries. It usually follows that such a man has even less respect for the achievements of others, [emphasis his] which he thinks anyone else might have easily accomplished, most especially himself. He views many of those who fail to reach his own level of achievement with either pity or contempt, as the only legitimate explanations for inequality in his egalitarian mind are: a) oppression; or b) moral fault.

Now, it's awfully amusing how he lays this at the feet of Marx. And then there's the bit in italics, about what usually follows this pernicious informality. These seem to be clear instances of exactly the kind of bad behavior our scientist friends were complaining about last week, where the philosopher asserts that some phenomenon is caused by or correlated with some other phenomenon, but where this relationship has not been subject to empirical scrutiny and has in fact just been made up. Examples of this in the quoted text include: that people who eschew titles view them as pretentious and arrogant; that they do this because of marxism; that they do this because they object to relationships of unequal power; that they nevertheless define the relationship in terms of unequal power, regardless of the details; that they feel embarrassment or guilt over this inequality of power; that they regard accomplishments as oppressive; that they respect the achievements of others even less than they respect their own; that they believe that just anyone could earn a doctoral degree; that the only legitimate reasons for an inequality of achievement are oppression and moral fault. Wowza.

I allow my students to use my first name. I do this not because I have no respect for my own achievements, but (in part) out of my tremendous respect for the achievements of real doctors. I do not see my role as defined by power and privilege rather than by knowledge and achievement; I see my role as involving all of these things. I have certain powers and privileges, and I am qualified to have these powers and privileges in virtue of my knowledge and accomplishments. But the most important thing about these powers and privileges is that they come with very serious responsibilities. I am competent to do this job in virtue of my qualifications, but they have little or nothing to do with the fact that I can be trusted with the responsibility of doing it.

I have these powers, privileges, and responsibilities, as well as my knowledge and achievements, whether or not I insist on being addressed in a way that accentuates them. I am inclined to suspect that this widespread trend of using first names is a result of the fact that the academic student-teacher relationship is, like a lot of things, now less formal than it was. People don't dress up the way they used to, and they don't use titles the way they used to.

I also have some experience with this practice from the perspective of an undergraduate. My undergraduate professors all permitted students to use first names--some allowed all students to do so, while others insisted on the honorific from students at the intro level while they were more relaxed with students in the upper division. This did not decrease my respect for them, their knowledge, or their accomplishments. I was, and continue to be, in awe of how smart and accomplished these people were and are. They were the smartest people I had ever met in real life, and I declared philosophy as my major, before I had any inkling that I wanted to pursue it as a career, in the hopes that a philosophical education would make me as smart as they were. I did not get the idea that just anyone could achieve what they had achieved.

And so it seems to me that if they respect you only because they call you doctor, they don't respect you. It seems to me that whether they call you doctor or not is irrelevant to whether they respect you. And it seems to me that, in an environment in which nobody else is doing it, insisting on being addressed as doctor will make them respect you less because they will think you're a jackass.

--Mr. Zero

P.S. Cullbreath is really distasteful. Here he is reprimanding a commenter for the "offensive" practice of using the feminine pronoun for a generic person.