A friend who has spent his career at denominational liberal arts colleges, meanwhile, told me last week that his schools have tended to have the opposite problem. When they post an opening, they receive very few applicants who meet the minimum academic requirements, and positions often come down to just two or three candidates who have the right degrees. (Which may explain Christian colleges’ willingness to hire ABD, which, in turn, leads to the ABD faculty member having a very hard time removing the “AB” from their “D.”)

What have others experienced?

2) You take the previous scenario and add to it that on many campuses the great majority of professors/instructors are only part-timers with little or no benefits. Never mind that these are some of the most current, creative, exciting, and progressive individuals due to being in the actual real world applying their craft. As an adjunct professor of some years now, I get frustrated applying for full time positions and clearing interview hurdles only to find out that a younger, less experienced, and sometimes prettier person with smaller CV’s and no Ph.D. gets hired. We adjuncts often feel like we are at the bottom of the feeding chain. Consequently I am seriously thinking about staying on the non-academic track as my main career. I have a successful private psychotherapy practice.

3) If you happen to be in a research institution you will see the Arts being sliced right out of existence in favor of making room to build the new pharmacological intervention experimentation lab that will bring millions in grants and royalty fees collected. You’ll also see narcissistic professors abusively using their slave labor of graduate students to prop up their massive egos. I have a good friend who was a department director on a large campus. He would tell me how he would be evaluated by department chairs mostly on whether he could publish and attract dollars. Hardly any points were given to him for the fact that he was the favorite professor of undergraduates and graduate students. He is an amazing instructor. He would also inform me that tenured professors would show up only one time to classes and that was to give the only exam to the class. In the meanwhile these classes were handled by graduate students if at all. When comparing research institutions to community colleges, most of my former students tell me that they hate the fact that professors in research institutions “don’t give a hoot.” about teaching well or about them. That is their perception.

In the end, I think that the system needs a revolution from within or be replaced with a better model.

Samuel Lopez De Victoria, Ph.D.
http://www.DrSam.tv

“I am at a crossroads. I could apply for faculty positions or go the nonacademic route. I could look at postdocs or think about getting a master’s in public health. I could give it all up, continue to teach the dance classes that have helped pay the bills, finally plan my wedding, become a trophy wife, and be the most interesting person at every cocktail party.

My life is my own Choose Your Own Adventure! book. And I really just want to read ahead to make sure I’m not on the path that leads to me tripping in the abandoned mansion and falling into the never-ending pit.”

http://www.des.emory.edu/mfp/octopus.html

Many grad students are employees, but all grad students are, well, students.

I would love to know:

The percentage of PhD’s who don’t get a job in a profession that doesn’t value the PhD (so include both faculty and also administration jobs and other expert positions)

The same percentage for grad students with assistantships.

In other words, there may be a glut, but is it really true that being a funded grad student is the last academic job for most/many students?

Especially in the humanities, where grad students and adjuncts often teach a high percentage of classes, it is telling that this is one of the few places Universities make money off of tuition dollars. The University needs cheap labor in most areas in order to make a profit so they can funnel the money to the projects/departments that are not self sufficient.