At a time when most English departments are happy to get permission to hire one new faculty member, the English department at Florida State University has been on a hiring binge. Encouraged by the university's dean of arts and sciences, the department ran six searches this year, making it the envy of its peers.
"The dean conceived of a strategy that was countercyclical: When everybody else wasn't hiring it would be a good time for us to hire," says Hunt Hawkins, the department's chairman. "We would then have our pick of people on the market."
While the job market in English this academic year remains stagnant, it proved not quite as bad as expected. Last December, the Modern Language Association reported that its job listings in English for 2002-3 were down 19 percent from the previous year. But its latest figures show that things rebounded a bit, with English departments advertising 1,454 openings this year, 754 of them for new assistant professors on the tenure track. That's a slight increase from 2001-2, when departments advertised 1,398 positions, about half of them tenure-track openings.
"This is consistent with the pattern we have been seeing for the last several years," says Rosemary G. Feal, executive director of the MLA. "We in the academic profession are not satisfied with these numbers, because they indicate an erosion of the tenure-track position as the norm for new hires in colleges and universities." That erosion is likely to continue given that tight financial times have forced states to slash higher-education budgets. "Unless the economy improves, funding is restored at the public universities, and endowments at the privates get better returns," Ms. Feal says, "I can't say we would see growth in the number of positions again."
Because of budget woes, the University of Virginia's English department hasn't been able to hire a new faculty member in three years. However, "we're coming out of it and will start hiring again next year," says Michael Levenson, the department's chairman.
The department has approval to conduct two searches. On Mr. Levenson's wish list: an assistant professor in world Anglophone literature and an assistant professor in American ethnic studies. He also would like to replace retiring or departing faculty members in fields from medieval to modern literatures. "It's impossible to give an exact number, but it's fair to say that one appointment in each of six historical areas would be a good outcome over the next three or four years," he says. "We better get something."
Florida State, meanwhile, has not suffered such a dry spell. So far this year its English department has hired five assistant professors to teach poetry, 18th-century British literature, medieval literature, 19th-century African-American literature, and global literature and film, Mr. Hawkins says. The new faculty members will replace people who retired or left for other institutions. The department is still negotiating with a sixth hire to teach 19th-century British literature at the associate-professor rank.
If Mr. Hawkins successfully negotiates the last hire, his department will grow to 47 tenured and tenure-track faculty members this fall. "This is the most hiring that we've ever done in one year in our entire history," he says. And it may not happen again soon. "The Florida Legislature is currently meeting in special session" because "it couldn't come to agreement on the state budget," and "it's not looking real good."
Still, Mr. Hawkins hopes to hire a fiction writer, someone to teach composition and rhetoric, and someone to teach Renaissance British literature (all three positions would be subject to the dean's approval), and he wants to expand the department further. "We have 197 graduate students this year, about 900 undergraduate English majors, and also 200 English-education majors who take a lot of our courses," he says. "We're understaffed. We should have as many as 15 to 20 more tenure-track faculty than our current 41."
Each of its advertised searches attracted about 100 applicants, Mr. Hawkins says. "If you're hiring, this market works well for you," he says. "You can get really good people. If you're trying to find a job it's a little rough these days."
But it's not impossible. Some institutions, including the University of Missouri at Columbia and the University of Arizona, did not hire at all this year and might not hire again next year. Many other departments hired one or two faculty members, and a few institutions did an unusual amount of hiring:
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Stephen Holder, chairman of the English department at Central Michigan University, hired five assistant professors this academic year -- in African-American literature, British literature, children's literature, creative writing, and English education. While the university has experienced some budget reductions, his department was able to fill positions left open thanks to faculty retirements or departures because "our president is committed to maintaining tenured positions on the campus and, in fact, increasing them," Mr. Holder says.
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Valerie Lee, chairwoman of the English department at Ohio State University, hired five assistant professors in English this year -- two Americanists, two specialists in rhetoric and composition, and one in Victorian literature.
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George W. Crandell, head of Auburn University's English department, hired assistant professors in African-American literature, creative writing/poetry, and technical communications. The department hopes to fill positions next year in Renaissance literature and Southern literature but has yet to win approval of those searches. "The only way we'll get new positions," he says, "is if people in the college retire. We generally have not been approved to search at the higher ranks" because of the higher salaries required to recruit senior scholars.
What concerns the MLA, says Ms. Feal, is something the association's tabulations don't reveal -- whether departments are being allowed to replace retiring professors with new tenure-track faculty members. "There is a large chunk of retiring faculty in their 60s," she says. "What the numbers don't tell us is how many of those positions have been lost."
That also concerns many new Ph.D.'s who are struggling to stay in the game.
At Florida State, 5 of its 10 English Ph.D.'s who were on the academic market this year were able to land tenure-track jobs, Mr. Hawkins says. One will teach composition and rhetoric, while the others will teach poetry, modern British literature, 18th-century literature, and 20th-century American literature. "Literature in general has been a bit tough to get jobs in," Mr. Hawkins says. There are, however, probably more opportunities for work in ethnic literatures, he says. A few years ago, the market for scholars in creative writing was fairly robust as departments were expanding their creative-writing programs. Now, many of those positions have been filled, and it's tougher to break into the field.
Just ask Tom C. Hunley. He was on the market in creative writing several years ago but went back to get his doctoral degree after he couldn't land a job with his M.F.A. This was his first year on the market as a newly minted Ph.D., and he says that many of the advertisements he saw for creative-writing jobs in poetry -- his specialty -- required candidates to have not only a Ph.D. but also a book published.
To make himself more competitive on the market, he decided to make his minor area of specialization composition and rhetoric, which, he says, helped him land a tenure-track job at Western Kentucky University. It was his only offer out of the 75 institutions to which he applied. Adding composition to his repertoire "was basically a strategic move," he says. "Teaching schools like Western Kentucky appreciate somebody who is interested in teaching general-education courses in addition to their own specialty."
After four years on the academic market, Mr. Hunley's fellow graduate student at Florida State, Celia M. Kingsbury, finally landed a tenure-track job. This fall she'll teach modern British literature and composition courses as an assistant professor at Central Missouri State University.
Ms. Kingsbury, who earned her Ph.D. in 2000, says that getting a book published last August made her a more competitive candidate. "I think there are a few more openings this year than in previous years" in Modern British literature, she says. This year, for example, she applied to 30 institutions with openings in her field; last year she applied for only 20 such openings. She landed five interviews this year, as opposed to one last year. Central Missouri was her only job offer.
At the University of Virginia, the English department had a stellar placement rate, with 16 of its 23 graduate students on the academic job market this year landing tenure-track jobs, says Jennifer Wicke, professor of English and placement director. Eight of those 18 landed jobs in 20th-century American literature, 5 in 20th-century British literature, and 3 in ethnic American literature, she says.
"There's no doubt about it, the market is so tough and so tight," says Ms. Wicke. "One thing we've been delighted to find is it really does make a difference if you take the time to make every separate letter special to show that institution what you can offer them."
THE HIRING REPORT
It's been a tough year financially for academe. So, how has that affected faculty hiring? We begin a series of articles on the subject, starting with the job market in English.
