It's not a matter of whether I'll find a teaching job this hiring season; it's only a matter of where.
"What nerve!" you say, incredulous. "Who does this person think he is? What, is he some Ivy League hotshot? Has he found a solution for world peace, or a cure for cancer?"
No, no, I'm not any of those. But, barring any unforeseen dissertation disaster (possible, but not likely) or some other catastrophe (let's hope against that, too), the odds suggest that I should expect to receive at least one job offer, and probably more. Why? Because I've found an area of academe in which -- for the time being, anyway -- there are more positions open than there are candidates to fill them.
I'm a "specialist in writing." I'm leaving the definition kind of broad because there aren't too many of us out there, in the grand scheme of things. Over the past three decades, universities have developed new doctoral programs in areas such as rhetoric and composition, technical communication, writing pedagogy, computers and writing, writing across the curriculum, rhetoric of science, and writing-program administration, to name a few. My program is somewhere in that mix.
So while many people will be sweating it out this season, hoping for an interview or two "anywhere" and crossing their fingers for a campus visit, the odds are that I can expect several interviews and multiple campus visits. Recent graduates from my program have been in the enviable position of weighing multiple offers. Some have landed assistant professorships with the much desired 2-2 teaching load (two courses a semester) at research universities.
While the broad field of writing, usually situated within English departments, has been booming in recent years, the growth has not always come smoothly or easily. Many humanities professors seem to regard writing as a "service" discipline inferior to others, such as literary and cultural studies. Rarely is a professorship in writing viewed as glamorous or influential, although the field does have its own big names.
I can't control what people think of my discipline any more than I can control what they think of me. Besides, the "service" aspect of writing -- teaching students the craft -- is part of what drew me into the field. Writing studies are maturing past the "mere" level of service courses, and it's exciting to have the chance to help discover some uncharted or heretofore overlooked intellectual territory.
I feel like a Vegas bookie with continued references to the "odds" of finding employment. But for Ph.D.'s in literature, the odds of landing a tenure-track job are so steep that many programs clearly state them to prospective doctoral students. Other programs help literature Ph.D.'s better their odds through course work in writing studies and through experience in writing centers or writing-program administration.
Some fellow graduate students in my field might be thinking, "Shhh! Don't advertise the fact that there are more jobs than people to fill them!" Well, in my estimation, the field will benefit when more people are involved in teaching and research. With more people writing articles, presenting papers at conferences, and applying for jobs, each of us will have to work more diligently and become better as teachers and scholars.
Some people might join the field out of sheer financial necessity, having tried first to break into the crowded field of literary studies. Others, like me, have made writing study our first choice. But we all have to look at ourselves in the mirror, and we all have to examine our lives and decide whether we like what we see, and whether we can be content with our circumstances. Some might see writing studies as a "consolation prize" when a literature position can't be found, but others see it as the prize worth striving for on its own.
While I'm strangely confident about the job search, I'm also wary of hubris. My life will not be free and easy over the next several months. I do have that small detail known as the dissertation to take care of. My committee wants three good chapters before they will write letters of recommendation, so I can't flake out, stall out, or freak out, as much as I might like to.
So that I may continue eating and keeping a roof over my family's heads, I'll be teaching two classes. And then there's the whole "life outside of academe," including my spouse, our young child, and the dog. I can't exactly drop the responsibilities I have to them, nor do I want to.
And even though there have been more writing-specialist jobs than candidates to fill them in the past few years, I still have to prove myself. I'll have to package my as-yet-unfinished dissertation in a manner that the hiring committees find palatable. I'll have to compete with doctoral students as well as current assistant professors looking to move, many of whom have more publications than I do. In short, I'll have to do more than call myself a writing specialist. I'll have to prove it.
I won't be competing just with other candidates. I'll be competing against the job-search process itself -- trying to pitch my services to a bunch of people I don't know, in places that are likely to be unfamiliar, with knowledge of all my own shortcomings, and with the fear that the committees will find someone better, smarter, and more to their liking in every search I enter.
In other words, my confidence will be shaken and tested many times in the coming months.
But when I see the other graduates from my program who have made it through the system, I'm reminded that I couldn't have made it this far without doing at least something right. And I start to believe that my time spent as a teacher and student has prepared me for the next step.
My wife and I have already started thinking about life after I finish graduate school. We're wondering aloud about what it will be like in the next place: What sort of geography will surround us? What kind of house can we afford? How cold, how hot will it get? How close will we be to our parents? Will we still live a day's drive from the closest Ikea store? This is the fun part about the job search.
Although I'm neither a gambler nor a mathematician, I know that my odds of coming out a winner are pretty good.
