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On merit and the academic job market: a thread, in light of that silly article.
First, of course there& #39;s merit involved. You have to be vaguely competent to get a job. But if you& #39;re in a grad program you& #39;re competent, so ditch the merit stuff there. Here& #39;s why. 1/x
First, of course there& #39;s merit involved. You have to be vaguely competent to get a job. But if you& #39;re in a grad program you& #39;re competent, so ditch the merit stuff there. Here& #39;s why. 1/x
Of course it may be different at a research based institution. But for most of us, most of our work will involve teaching. And that& #39;s where the merit stuff stumbles. 2/x
For one thing we& #39;re not trained as teachers. But also, I think, nobody is really trained as a teacher. That old saying about "You learn from your students" is cloying and all, but it& #39;s definitely true. 3/x
We learn a thousand things from students, including how to teach them. I thought I was a good teacher when I walked in the door of my college, fifteen years ago. I was wrong. I underestimated severely how much you learn about teaching as you get older. 4/x
There& #39;s so much to learn, in fact, that there& #39;s no way to tell who& #39;s going to become a good teacher and who isn& #39;t, who& #39;s going to find their way and who isn& #39;t. Which means the job market can& #39;t be about who can do the job well. 5/x
It becomes instead about who INTERVIEWS well, who matches what the department or the school think they& #39;re looking for. And that& #39;s more about preconceptions--and race, class, gender, sexuality, and sheer dumb luck--than it can ever be about merit. 6/x
I know some brilliant scholars who were on the job market for years. I know others who got jobs almost immediately out of school. 7/x
But with all the advantages in the world--two parents with PhD& #39;s who let me stay in their attic while job searching, a well respected grad program, and plenty of adjunct experience under my belt--it took me three grueling years to get a full time position. 8/x
I had one interview the year I got my job. And that was because I happened to be working a desk job in an archive when the archivist& #39;s friend called looking for an adjunct, and three years later that caller knew someone who knew someone who was on the hiring committee. 9/x
Fifteen years later, it worked out. I have a job I love and a life I love. But that offer came about not through merit, but through sheer insane luck and a lot of privilege. 10/x
So if you& #39;re on the market, hang in there, tweet at us #AcademicTwitter types when you need encouragement, and please don& #39;t think for one second that the folks with tenure track jobs are better than you. Not for one second. End of thread. 11/11
