Unraveling of the philosophy job market

The American Philosophical Society has posted the following Statement on the Job Market Calendar

The following statement was adopted by the board of officers at its November 2016 meeting. It is effective beginning with the 2016-2017 academic job market season. 

For tenure-track/continuing positions advertised in the second half of the calendar year, we recommend an application deadline of November 1 or later. It is further recommended that positions be advertised at least 30 days prior to the application deadline to ensure that candidates have ample time to apply.

In normal circumstances a prospective employee should have at least two weeks for consideration of a written offer from the hiring institution, and responses to offers of a position whose duties begin in the succeeding fall should not be required before February 1.

When advertising in PhilJobs: Jobs for Philosophers, advertisers will be asked to confirm that the hiring institution will follow the above guidelines. If an advertiser does not do so, the advertisement will include a notice to that effect.

The Chronicle of Higher Ed has picked up the story this month:
A Disciplinary Association Aims to Rein In a ‘Chaotic’ Hiring Calendar

"Q. What problem is this statement reacting to?

A. Over the last few years, as more philosophy departments have moved away from in-person interviews at the APA’s Eastern Division meeting and toward other approaches, such as web-based interviews or elimination of first-round interviews altogether, we’ve begun hearing from members that application deadlines have crept earlier and earlier, as have deadlines for accepting offers of employment.

These changes have disadvantaged job candidates by, for example, forcing them to make a decision on an offer from one institution before having even been interviewed by another. Many members, as well as an internal APA task force, have suggested that an APA policy statement would help to address these concerns about the job-market calendar.

Q. What are the goals of this statement? What would the APA like the calendar to look like?

A. Our goals with this statement are to set clear expectations for hiring departments, and also, by including a notice on ads for jobs that don’t follow the calendar, to provide job candidates with better information at the outset of their job searches so that they can make more-informed decisions.

The statement specifies the earliest date by which applications for academic positions should be required, and the earliest date by which final acceptance of offers of employment should be required — the two portions of the job-market calendar that are of most concern to our members. We respect that different departments have different approaches to the hiring process, so the statement is limited to just those two dates."

HT: Ricky Vohra

Philosophy job market

Inside Higher Ed reports that a social reception called "the smoker" at the Philosophy job market meetings plays a semi-official role in hiring, with some interviews continuing there in the evening: Something’s Smoking. The story records that aspects of this make some women candidates uncomfortable.

Lest economists feel smug, this paragraph caught my eye, and reminded me of interviews in the hotel suites (and sometimes simple hotel rooms when those run out) at the ASSA meetings:

"Rebecca Kukla, a philosophy professor at Georgetown University, said the event was socially problematic for women, not unlike another former practice at some APA conferences (and those of other disciplinary meetings) where job candidates were interviewed in hotel rooms and sometimes had to sit on a hotel bed while being interviewed. That practice was stopped a few years ago, and interviews are now held in suites or in ballrooms."

Inside a philosophy search (from the labor demand side)

Lou Marinoff describes the search process that led to the hiring of two philosophers this year at City College of the City University of New York. They received 637 applications. They could have used an electronic application process...

"This posed a major filing challenge since less well-organized applicants sent in their materials in dribs and drabs. Hundreds of letters of recommendation not bundled with applications had to be opened, tallied and filed. At times, six boxes had to be displaced to file one piece of paper. It became a common sight to behold members of our search committee trundling half a dozen boxes to their offices on handcarts so they could keep up with the incoming deluge."

"The committee’s next task was to compile a “long list” of applicants to interview at the upcoming American Philosophical Association (APA) Eastern Division annual meeting. We had less than four weeks to identify and notify the candidates we wanted to meet with in time for the event, held December 27–30 in Philadelphia."

"How did we prune our field from 637 to 27? An important selection criterion was holding a Ph.D. from a good university. ...
A second criterion was research and publication. ...
Third, we needed evidence of undergraduate teaching ability as well as versatility. ...We looked for evidence of outstanding teaching ability, variety, and potential for curriculum development.
Finally, we wanted evidence of administrative service. "

After the interviews came the flyouts:
"We attained consensus on six finalists whom we invited to campus in February 2009. They ran a gauntlet of meetings, and each one had to give a “guest lecture” for an undergraduate course in progress – as opposed to reading a paper in a departmental colloquium. We knew they could all read and write well enough, or they wouldn’t have been finalists."

And finally came the negotiations with the administration
"Not long after handing our final rankings to Dean Reynolds, he called me into his office. He informed me that the abundant fruits of our search, and the energy we had invested in it, had not escaped the notice of our senior administration. Prudentially, I recalled the second of three infamous Chinese curses: “May the government be aware of you.” But this time it was a blessing."

Philosophy job market

A story on the philosophy department at Auburn University contains some insights into the whole philosophy supply chain, from attracting students to sending them to grad school to recruiting professors. The philosophy job market is in some ways unusual even for an academic job market. An interesting window on it (occasionally) is Leiter Reports: A Philosophy Blog