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When tenure never comes

thewalrus.ca

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Re: When tenure never comes

#11

Post by jseliger »

throw_away_777 wrote: post #9

Every student considering going to graduate school should read this article. Professors are very misinformed about how likely someone is to get tenure (most of them got it > 20 years ago, in a much better academic job market). This misinformation trickles down to students. The simple fact is that right now the average professor is graduating more than 10 phd students, only 1 of which can become a tenured professor at…

Academia expanded enormously between 1945 – 1975, when virtually everyone who got a PhD could get an academic job. Since then, time-to-degree for PhDs in all subjects has increased dramatically, post-docs have become the norm, and academic jobs have become scarce. I wrote about this in "What you should know BEFORE you start grad school / PhD programs in English Literature: The economic, financial, and opportunity costs" (http://jakeseliger.com/2012/05/22/what-you-should-know-befor...), but the overall point can be generalized to a large number of fields.

As you note, academia has become increasingly exploitative, even when most individual professors remain well meaning.

In addition, many people considering grad school or who have recently begun it seem not to know quite how bad the situation is, or quite how bad it can be to be in your 30s and to have effectively wasted the career part of your 20s.

Re: When tenure never comes

#12

Post by ptero »

Being out of an academic job is a painful experience. I have a PhD in math and, entering grad school, was aiming only for an academic career.

However, it was very clear to everyone in my grad program (as well as to my friends doing physics PhDs across the street) that this requires 1-2 competitive postdocs (3-6 years at low salary) and a stiff competition to a tenure track. And you do not usually get a choice: i.e., if you get offered a position, you grab it, be it in Maine or Texas (I decided to avoid this race and went to the industry; there are pros and cons to both paths).

IMO, the tenure system, at least in the US, is highly inefficient. Things are pretty top-heavy (older, tenured professors who originally were expected to retire by ~60, often do not) and graduating PhDs with decent, but not stellar results have a very hard time on the academic research track.

Re: When tenure never comes

#13

Post by pmiller2 »

purpleidea wrote: post #2

The author of the article never mentions what faculty or program they're in, or references any of their work. No doubt this is a real problem, but in this particular case they could just be a lousy researcher in a faculty that doesn't have a high demand for new professors. IOW the "psychology" / "liberal arts" over population. I'm not trying to knock any of those studies, but there is a large excess where I'm from.

There's an overpopulation in virtually every field. Any graduate student can look to his or her left and right in class and realize that those people are his or her competition for a job that only one of them is going to get. The situation is only somewhat better in STEM fields, because there's more industry demand (where you can get paid more and have better mobility, but get looked down on by your academic brethren.)

Re: When tenure never comes

#14

Post by mturmon »

hooloovoo_zoo wrote: post #8
purpleidea wrote: post #2

The author of the article never mentions what faculty or program they're in, or references any of their work. No doubt this is a real problem, but in this particular case they could just be a lousy researcher in a faculty that doesn't have a high demand for new professors. IOW the "psychology" / "liberal arts" over population. I'm not trying to knock any of those studies, but there is a large excess where I'm from.

The author seems to think writing a book is necessary for tenure, so he isn't in a STEM field (obviously many STEM professors write books but the vast majority of STEM professors who receive tenure have not written a book).

A history grad student I knew (I was in STEM) remarked that if he couldn't get an adaptation of his dissertation published somewhere in book form, it would be a major career setback.

Having graduated in 1992 with his PhD, his book came out in 1998, as he moved through a series of temporary positions. He's tenured at a major university now, but he does have to live in an out of the way and rather drab college town. It's no picnic.

Re: When tenure never comes

#15

Post by scott_s »

arcanus wrote: post #7

Saddening story. However, as an academic myself, some bits were misleading or odd: > funding regulations meant the grant couldn’t pay my salary as its lead researcher I've never, ever heard of anything like this occurring. The most I have seen are cost sharing pieces where a grant cannot more than a certain % of your salary. But these are often known upfront by the PI! > The two disclosed who had submitted a grant pr…

I suspect the author is from the humanities, which have starkly different funding realities than what you and I are used to. (Your profile says you are a computational scientist, and while I work in industry, I still publish in computer science academic conferences.)

Re: When tenure never comes

#16

Post by carsongross »

jseliger wrote: post #11
throw_away_777 wrote: post #9

Every student considering going to graduate school should read this article. Professors are very misinformed about how likely someone is to get tenure (most of them got it > 20 years ago, in a much better academic job market). This misinformation trickles down to students. The simple fact is that right now the average professor is graduating more than 10 phd students, only 1 of which can become a tenured professor at…

Academia expanded enormously between 1945 – 1975, when virtually everyone who got a PhD could get an academic job. Since then, time-to-degree for PhDs in all subjects has increased dramatically, post-docs have become the norm, and academic jobs have become scarce. I wrote about this in "What you should know BEFORE you start grad school / PhD programs in English Literature: The economic, financial, and opportunity cos…

One of my most infuriating moments at Berkeley was when I attended a symposium on pursuing an academic career (I was interested in one at that point) and a professor complained that students were too concerned with academics and weren't spending enough time protesting, like she had.

It was the academic equivalent of Old Economy Steven. Very triggering.

Re: When tenure never comes

#18

Post by ptero »

mjevans wrote: post #5
purpleidea wrote: post #2

The author of the article never mentions what faculty or program they're in, or references any of their work. No doubt this is a real problem, but in this particular case they could just be a lousy researcher in a faculty that doesn't have a high demand for new professors. IOW the "psychology" / "liberal arts" over population. I'm not trying to knock any of those studies, but there is a large excess where I'm from.

Yet those programs would happily take on more than their replacement rate, while at the same time not being upfront about the actual chances of getting a job.

In general, though, I think most grad programs should take more than their replacement rate. There should be a (sizeable) outflow to non-academic jobs in a healthy system. This also requires not having an institutional "tenure or failure" mentality, which is, sadly, not uncommon in many science grad schools.

Re: When tenure never comes

#19

Post by pmiller2 »

I consider myself fortunate that I realized most of what was talked about in this article was true while I was about halfway through grad school. The fundamental realization that given the size of my classes, where my peers were competition for any academic job, combined with the fact that I would literally have to wait for someone to die before I could get one of those jobs, was enough to knock me right off of the academic track.

I might've even put up with postdoc hell, and the "6 year job interview " that is the tenure process if I thought it would have come to something. But, when you have 50 people competing for the same three openings in a year, and only one chance per year to apply, the odds don't look very good.

Re: When tenure never comes

#20

Post by pmiller2 »

ptero wrote: post #18
mjevans wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yet those programs would happily take on more than their replacement rate, while at the same time not being upfront about the actual chances of getting a job.

In general, though, I think most grad programs should take more than their replacement rate. There should be a (sizeable) outflow to non-academic jobs in a healthy system. This also requires not having an institutional "tenure or failure" mentality, which is, sadly, not uncommon in many science grad schools.

Yes, there should be a sizable outflow to non-academic jobs, but that implies that the demand is there, and that the jobs hey sufficiently well to make up for the opportunity cost of not earning for eight years or more. These conditions do not really exist for a lot of fields. How many jobs outside academia are there where a PhD in medieval history is an advantage?
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