Does Scholarship Matter?

Lately, I have been thinking about the value and perception of scholarship in academia. Specifically, I have been wondering how scholarship should be assessed in one's own institution and when applying for faculty jobs.


In the humanities, the monograph has typically been viewed as the highest standard of scholarship, and is often required for tenure at many colleges and universities. But this is not always the case, as I have discovered. I know of several liberal arts colleges where faculty members are granted tenure, and sometimes move up the ranks to full professor, without producing much scholarship in the form of peer-reviewed journal articles and books. It seems as though some liberal arts colleges even prefer that its faculty members do not spend much time publishing, believing that such efforts will take away from time and preparation in the classroom. At these institutions, teaching is seen as virtually the sole responsibility for its faculty. I have even heard some stories where accomplished scholars are passed over when applying for a job at a liberal arts college because they have too many publications. The perception is this: if a person has published a lot, that must mean he or she is a bad teacher, or at least does not spend enough time honing their skills as an educator.

At a regional state school where I teach, scholarship and teaching is deemed as important. I estimate that it would be very difficult for a faculty member in the humanities at UTC to secure tenure with very little or no peer-reviewed publications. It would also not bode well for a tenure-track faculty member at UTC to have terrible student evaluations, even if he or she had a solid publishing record. But what certainly seems to be true is that once you are in the system as a tenure-track employee, you have a very good chance of securing tenure, provided that you have proven to be a congenial member of the department, have a reasonably good track record of publications, and at least an average rating as a teacher. Further, once you are in the system, a certain number of publications (especially academic books) almost assuredly leads to promotion as an associate, and, eventually, full professor.

But what about people today who are in the hunt for a permanent faculty position? What must their cv look like to be an attractive candidate? There seems to be no clear answer. The standard response is that you should have a completed PhD, some teaching experience, and some publications. Last year, according to the bloggers on the academic jobs wiki, UTC received 386 applications for an entry-level assistant professorship in the history department. How in the world do you decide who to hire with that kind of applicant pool? Do you hire the person with the most publications, since presumably every viable candidate has a completed PhD and some teaching experience as a ta or instructor of record? Perhaps you should hire the person with the most prestigious PhD, from an Ivy League school. But what if you hire a person with a degree from Harvard or Yale only to realize that he or she is planning on upgrading to a Research University as soon as possible?

I have now published two books with Oxford University Press. The first is a revised version of my PhD dissertation and the second is an edited anthology of religious figures in the eighteenth-century transatlantic world. During the summer, I have been working on a third book, having to do with the transatlantic publishing of Jonathan Edwards's works. I will be identifying the various printers, publishers and intermediaries who helped publish Edwards's works within his lifetime, and after he died in 1758. As someone who is not yet "in the system" as a tenure-track faculty member, I now wonder if three books will hurt my chances if I eventually decide to apply at liberal arts colleges. Will I be seen as concentrating too much of my time on publishing, even if I have taught several courses with good student evaluations? For research universities, I wonder if it makes a difference if a prospective candidate publishes one book, versus two or three. Someone recently told me that a person with two books should really only apply for associate level positions, and not assistant professorships. Is it true that a person with more than one book is somehow perceived as being overqualified for an entry-level, tenure-track position? I hope that is not the case.

The current job market for humanities professors fascinates me because there are seems to be no uniformity. There continues to be people being hired (albeit rarely) as ABD candidates and with little teaching and perhaps no publications. Yet I also know prolific scholars who remain unemployed (True story: I once met an accomplished young scholar at a conference who wrote on his name tag, "Unemployed" without any further information). What's going on here? Why isn't there a uniform system for hiring humanities faculty members so that candidates can know exactly what they must do to find full-time employment?

It seems that the best explanation for these apparent inconsistencies is that candidates are hired based on "fit" within a department. While a person may look good on paper (have impeccable credentials), he or she may not be a good fit within a department if their expertise is the same as another faculty member or if their research and teaching interests are not compatible with the department's objectives. So, for example, if a department needs someone to teach courses on the Reformation, the search committee most likely won't hire an expert on the Church Fathers, especially if a member of the department already is competent in that field. Similarly, it is also unlikely that a religion department at a conservative Methodist college would hire a self-declared Calvinist.

The best advice that I have received is to continue doing what you love--teaching and research--and hope for the best. Since there are no guarantees that quality teaching and solid scholarship will translate into permanent employment in academia (especially in the current job market), the outcome is out of one's hands.

Frustrated Job Candidates

frus·trat·ed  

/ˈfrəsˌtrātid/

Adjective Feeling or expressing distress and annoyance, esp. because of inability to change or achieve something. (of a person) Unable to follow or be successful in a particular career.

In previous posts I have talked about the unlikelihood of landing a tenure-track job as an ABD candidate (click here), and recommended that PhD students have a strategy when seeking employment (click here).  If you have been applying for faculty positions this year, I'm sure you are aware how difficult the current market is for prospective humanities professors.

Here is a sobering example of the challenges awaiting individuals who hope to secure full-time faculty employment as humanities professors. UTC's history department advertised for an entry-level position as Assistant Professor of  Modern American History. Keep in mind that this is another job with the enticing statement, "Applications from advanced ABD candidates will be considered." I had heard rumors of a huge pool of applicants for this position, but I had no idea how many dossiers the department received. According to the pundits at the US History Academic Jobs Wiki, a whopping 368 people applied for this history job! Apparently, the search committee recently narrowed the pool to 46 people, who will then be whittled down to roughly a dozen candidates for Skype interviews. The lucky finalists will then be invited to the campus. Below are the highlights from some of the obviously frustrated candidates:

• Received this email from the search chair (2/4): "Good afternoon. I am very pleased to inform you that your application still is being considered for the tenure-line assistant professorship of Modern American History at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. Following an extensive review of the 368 applications submitted, your dossier is amongst 46 that now will advance to a second round of evaluation. Over the next 7-10 days, the search committee aims to identify 10-12 candidates to be interviewed via Skype during the second half of February. The most successful of these interviewees will be invited to Chattanooga for a campus visit during the month of March. Please accept my congratulations for advancing to this stage of the search process, and don't hesitate to contact me should you have any questions or concerns. Please also let me know if you no longer wish the committee to consider your candidacy."
  • What a load of old garbage. I wonder how they decided to advance 46 and not 47 or 48? I am absolutely certain that I had to be number 47 in the pool and I am severly disheartened not to get an interview. I will be filing my claim with the Human Rights Commission and the United Nations immediately.
  • Regardless of the above tantrum, I am severely disheartened not to be selected when I have many more publications than the search chair. Academia is a strange business. (x3)
  • I would love to know the criteria they used to select the "Lucky 46." I'm especially interested if this committee dumped all of the "stale PhDs" and just went for ABDs and recently-minted PhDs? When the Lucky 46 gets whittled to the Elite 10-12, I hope those who do not make the second cut share their ranks with the Wiki.
  • Rejected ABD here.  BLARG.  46, really?  That's ridiculous.  
• Received reject email stating they received 368 apps (2/6)
• I still beleive this to be an inside hire.
• It's sobering that the University of Tennessee in Chattanooga recieved 386 applications for one position. UT-C isn't exactly a top research university or even the flagship UT campus. Inside hire or not, this is a prime example of a broken system.
• Of course, this was a very broad search, but it is also sobering to know that after this search is over, there will still be 45 people out there looking for jobs who are more qualified than me. Time to consider non-academic positions?
  • You can't look at it that way. I, personally, do not think that there are 45 more qualified individuals than me out there...certainly not for this position. I think that the search committee was looking at some kind of "fit" issue or other criteria that was not written in the job advertisement and that caused my application to be rejected. I have a book, a contract for the second book, multiple articles/chapters, conference presentations.....far and above what the search chair for this position has. However, they chose to go for some other aspect of the CV instead of publications. For one of the searches below (not UTC), I have radically better qualifications than the three finalists (who have one article between them), yet the search committee was swayed by the desire to be hip and trendy and hire on academic fads and "potential," rather than actual accomplishments. My advice to you is the same I give myself: keep doing your work and something will eventually open up.

Lessons I Learned from Applying for Faculty Jobs

It's December, which means that the humanities faculty job market for 2013-2014 is drawing to a close. There are now about half the job postings on the AAR website as there was in September and October, and very few new postings for American religious history and church history positions on HigherEdJobs.com and the Chronicle these days. If you are feeling discouraged that you were not selected as a finalist, you are not alone. In many cases, hundreds of qualified applicants applied for the same job.

When I began my PhD studies in 2006, I had no idea how competitive the job market is for humanities professors. I remember one fellow graduate student naively telling me that earning a PhD was comparable to getting a union card. He said, "all you need to do is finish your PhD and you will get a job." In hindsight I should have known that this was a terribly inaccurate statement.

Three years after earning my PhD, I am now prepared to reflect on some of the lessons that I learned during my application years. If I could go back in time and talk to myself in 2008 (one year before I completed my PhD), I would have offered the following advice:

1) Do not apply for faculty jobs as an ABD student. Applying for faculty positions before I finished my PhD was pointless. You may wonder what the harm is in applying as an ABD student, after all, some of the job advertisements welcome such applicants. I would argue that receiving continual rejection letters is demoralizing and will negatively affect your attitude towards the job market. What's the harm in receiving twenty-five rejection letters in one year? The answer is that there are only so many times you can get up after being knocked to the ground, so save yourself for a time when you are in the best position to apply for a faculty job in the humanities.

Think about it like this: if there are over one hundred applicants for a faculty position, what chance is there that the search committee members would select you for an interview when most likely the majority of the other applicants have finished their PhDs, have more teaching experience than you, and probably have a significant number of publications? Landing a faculty job in the humanities is like winning the lottery--even when you are a strong candidate--so why would you want to subject yourself to worse odds as an ABD candidate?

Yes, it's true, there is occasionally the legendary tale of a PhD student who lands the perfect job. But it would be worth investigating this isolated incident to find out the credentials and connections of that particular person. Did he or she know anyone on the committee? Is he or she related to or affiliated with anyone in the school's administration? If none of these questions apply, try and find out the winning candidate's religious background. If the job was at a very conservative school, perhaps the search committee felt "safer" hiring someone who attended a conservative seminary or university over some of the more impressive candidates. In religion departments, it is often important that schools hire someone with a particular denominational background. I recall a faculty member at Indiana Wesleyan University, for instance, saying that the department wants Wesleyan Methodists, as opposed to those affiliated with the United Methodist Church. Now that's specific!


2) Complete the necessary requirements to your cv. If you have earned your PhD, it is time to consider the second piece of advice, which asks whether you have filled up your cv (honestly) with the following requirements: teaching experience, publications, and presentations. More so than research-based institutions, liberal arts colleges want to see plenty of teaching experience in your field.

My suggestion would be to teach whatever courses you can as an adjunct professor, regardless of the pay. If you have no teaching experience on your cv, and the only work you can find is teaching entry level courses, my advice is to take the job. Certain entry-level subjects may be out of your range of comfort, but they will add depth and breadth to your teaching experience. When I was looking for adjunct work at one school, I agreed to teach introductory courses in the Old and New Testaments. The NT was especially scary to me as a religious historian in training. But surprisingly, I loved teaching intro to NT, and grew confident the more that I taught the course. Furthermore, the knowledge that I gained has helped me when teaching religious history and thought courses. In my course on Modern Christian Thought, for example, I can talk quite a bit about historical criticism, including specific people, theories, and historical development. I would not have known very much about higher criticism had I not taken the time to prepare my lecture in intro to NT.

After several semesters of teaching various courses, it becomes much easier. You have already prepared your lectures and taught the course, and, even more importantly, worked out some of the nerves of entry-level teaching. Keep adding new courses to your cv and pretty soon you should have a list of courses that you can brag about in your cover letter (and present on your cv).

After three years of teaching at various places, here's what my list of courses taught looks like:

The Faiths of the Founding Fathers (spring 2013)

Religion in American Life

Contemporary Religious Issues

Religion in Southern Culture

Religion in the Age of Wesley, Whitefield, and Edwards

Introduction to Western Religions

Modern Christian Thought

             Readings in Modern European History (Graduate Course)

Eighteenth-Century Europe (Graduate Course)

Survey of American History I

History of Western Civilization

             History of the Baptists (Online Graduate Course)

             History of Fundamentalism (Online Graduate Course)

History of Christianity I (Online Graduate Course)

History of Christianity II (Online Graduate Course)

Historic Christian Belief

Biblical Literature I: Introduction to the Old Testament

Biblical Literature II: Introduction to the New Testament

New Testament Survey

Survey of Church History

World Civilization

People, Politics and Empire: Britain 1780-1914       

Empire to Europe: Britain 1915-1990

Having taught multiple sections of these courses, I would not lose sleep teaching practically anything in a history or religion department. But I would not have this confidence had I not taken some risks and taught classes that I was not initially comfortable facilitating.

Ok, now that teaching is out of the way, take a look at your publications. Ideally, you should have more than simply book reviews on your cv. If you have nine book reviews and no peer-reviewed articles, it's time to focus on publishing a journal article or two. Ask yourself if there are any tangent topics related to your PhD dissertation that you could explore. Try and avoid carving out your dissertation into journal articles. It may be difficult to find a publisher for your revised dissertation (if that is your plan) if the material in your chapters have already appeared in print. Instead, look for a topic that you know a good deal about, from your dissertation research, that you can simply expand into a journal-length article.

Once you have an article ready to submit, look for an appropriate journal. One of the mistakes that I made as a PhD student was fearing rejection from a top-tier journal. I talked myself out of sending articles to acclaimed journals. If you have a strong, original argument that you think could be accepted by a very good journal, then give it a try. In this case, a rejection letter or email can be helpful, especially if the editor points you in the direction of a journal that he or she thinks may be more appropriate. You may also receive advice from the editor or anonymous reviewers on ways to strengthen your thesis for the next submission.

How many publications are necessary to get a faculty job? Who knows. I don't believe that there is a set number, but you should have at least one or two scholarly journal articles published by the time of your application.

Finally, be sure to participate in presentations at conferences. Not only is reading a paper in front of established scholars good experience, but you may impress someone in the audience who has an important position, such as an editor of a journal or book series. I've heard several stories from friends and colleagues who said that they published such and such journal article or book because a scout in the audience approached them after the presentation.

If you have followed points one and two, you are now in a position to apply competitively for faculty jobs in the humanities. The bad news is that even when you have done everything right--taught several courses, published your brains out, presented papers, won awards, etc.--the odds are still against you landing a tenure-track job. But, if you have avoided applying for jobs when you are not a strong candidate, you have a better chance at maintaining a positive mental attitude and producing the best application in the next few years. I say years because Inside Higher Ed shows that the current average age of successful candidate for a tenure-track job is now 35.7. This is more evidence that applying ABD is a waste of time.

Humanities Jobs: Are they Worth It?

Lately, I have been confronted with the question of whether landing a humanities job is worth all the fuss. It seems that everyone around me earns a higher salary. I recall, for instance, walking to the local Sheetz gas station and noticing an advertisement for a needed assistant manager who would earn close to $50,000 with additional medical and retirement benefits. Christmas cards from distant relatives have been arriving, alerting me to recent job promotions and extravagant vacations. What is striking is that many of the cards are coming from people who are ten years younger. I remember these former tykes playing with Hot Wheels and Barbies as though it was yesterday.

I contrast the successes of friends and family with that of the humanities professor. The latter often goes into debt in order to attend graduate school. Perhaps he or she is lucky to receive free tuition and maybe a stipend to undergo postgraduate work, but even with a small income stream coming in, the PhD student lives below the poverty line during the multiple years of solitary confinement that it takes to complete a degree. This situation becomes even more complicated if the PhD candidate has a spouse and children. Little boys and girls do not understand why their daddy or mommy has to be locked up in a room or library all day instead of playing with them.

The payoff, of course, is that one day the PhD degree will be earned and lead to a tenure-track position at a reputable college, university, or seminary. Yet, as we all know, these jobs are illusive and securing one of these rare gems has been compared to winning the lottery. But suppose that one does land a tenure-track faculty position, what then? The reality is that you now have a job earning the equivalent salary of an assistant manager at a fast food restaurant. Even worse, the teaching post you accepted may require you to move to an undesired location far away from relatives (or civilization for that matter). The teaching load might be a 4-4, or worse, with responsibilities to teach entry-level general education courses full of unmotivated freshman. Sure, you are now "Dr. so and so," but is an additional prefix to your name worth all this?

In thinking about the potential disadvantages of the life of a humanities professor, it is only fair to point out the benefits as well. First, there is the joy of teaching. You get to engage (albeit sometimes sleepy) young minds on subject matter in your field. It may not be your specialty, but the information you go over at least in theory revolves around your knowledge base. Prodding students to think about interesting topics and relevant issues can be very rewarding, and even more so if you have the chance to teach an upper-level elective nearer to your specialty. A college professor teaches more mature students than the middle school or high school teacher, which means that classes have the potential of being the site of stimulating conversations and debates. Second, you have much more time off than most working adults. You have an extended summer vacation (and part of the spring off for that matter), a long Christmas break, and your own spring break, not to mention additional holidays. In the summer months while others are slaving away or bored at a Dilbert-type office environment you have the chance to do a number of things, including outdoor activities, research, and/or traveling. Third, you are paid to stay current with your discipline, which means that if you enjoy reading, you have the best of jobs. Academic presses send you free copies of books for you to review for journals or as potential classroom textbooks. Books push you to think about the accuracy of details in your lectures or offer new insights for research projects that you are working on. Fourth, there is a level of respect given to professors. Students in most cases call you "doctor" and the general public perceives that you are an intelligent person simply by the fact that you hold a faculty position. There are many additional perks that one could talk about, but these are some of the basics.

All-in-all the life of a professor is a good one. But not everyone would agree that the benefits outweigh the costs associated with this type of job. Anyone who doesn't enjoy reading, solitary research, teaching (obviously), and grading should not strive to be a professor. Furthermore, if you want to be wealthy and have an extravagant lifestyle, a humanities professorship is not for you. The benefits of a professorship is very much counter-cultural in that instead of leading a fast-paced life that utilizes high tech gadgets, the professor instead plops himself or herself into a chair and slowly and methodically reads (usually printed books), writes, and grades. In an age when most people seem to have a thirty-second attention span, professors are called to read thousands and thousands of pages on subjects that would leave most people yawning. The bottom line is that it is worth it to endure the challenges leading up to a full-time teaching position, provided that a person understands what that type of life entails.