I have to admit that I really didn't have much trouble landing a tenure-track position in my field of religious studies. During the year that I was studying for my comps and getting my dissertation outline in order I sent out some applications just to get a feel for interviewing. I interviewed at one college that was about two hours from my hometown the week after I passed my comps. In late January I was pleasantly surprised when I was offered a tenure-track position there.
At the time that my wife, my 18-month-old daughter, and I moved, I had the approval for the outline of my dissertation, but not a word of it was written. In my first two years I wrote the dissertation in the mornings while I taught during the day and into the evenings. The next four years went by quickly. I published a few articles, and a book based on my dissertation. My teaching evaluations were great since I had had plenty of experience, having taught high-school students before attending graduate school and some undergraduate and graduate courses while I pursued my Ph.D. Three years ago I was granted tenure.
As I have read the stories about grueling interviews and the search for the perfect job in these pages I have often wondered how many others, like me, have been lucky enough to grab the "golden ring," only to discover that it was mixed with a bit of brass. With the benefit of hindsight, it is easy to see how the dream of tenure sometimes obscures the reality of life on the tenure track. In reflecting on my experiences, I hope that the following might be helpful to those who wish to obtain that elusive tenure-track slot.
Most Professors Work at Teaching-Intensive Colleges
Graduate school trains you to do research. But most available positions are at institutions where the majority of your time will be spent teaching -- probably seven to eight courses a year. Research and writing must fit into the time that remains. Graduate school does not train you to teach, let alone how to grade tests and papers for 100 to 130 students each semester.
Furthermore, what you teach may bear only some general relationship to your graduate studies. The needs of the students do not always fit with what you are interested in, especially when the only experience that many of them will have with you is the required core-curriculum course.
Also, since many of these colleges are smaller than the university where you did your graduate studies, the scarcity of the library's holdings will take some getting used to.
Money and Benefits Are Important
As I thought about an academic career, I knew that I was not choosing it for the money. Intellectual curiosity and a joy in teaching led me to pursue it. I wanted to be with students, who would discover the importance of ideas, as I had. Now that I am a few years down this road, I have come to realize that while I still love teaching, it doesn't pay the bills.
Eventually, most of us would like to establish families, if we have not already started by the time we get that first permanent position. With new responsibilities come new expectations, which include actually having a place to call your own, with furniture that doesn't look as though it belongs in the dorms, and reliable transportation.
We struggle through graduate school and interviews and six years on the tenure track only to find that economic security in this profession can be elusive. One academic salary is not usually enough to support a family. I have been surprised at the number of tenured academics who moonlight or who belong to two-earner families. It is not because they want to live a luxurious lifestyle but because they need to work at something else in order to make ends meet.
Those of us who teach in the humanities, where the salaries are the lowest, are especially vulnerable. A colleague who was hired the same year I was actually qualified for food stamps in his first two years on the faculty. The money situation doesn't always improve over time: If you stay too long at one institution, you may find that many assistant professors, hired in at a higher salary than yours, are making more money than you are as an associate professor.
Other costs that need to be considered are the costs of health insurance, contributions toward retirement, and dental and eye care. It is surprising to me that many prospective faculty members don't really look at the benefit plans that a college or university offers.
Administrators Have a Different Agenda
The ivy-covered walls conceal from view the fact that higher education is a business. Administrators are fundamentally managers who keep a close eye on all of the details that help to keep colleges and universities running. Someone has to know how much things cost and whether we need a new building, or if we should hire more faculty members, or if tuition has to go up.
As much as faculty members would like to feel that we are an important part of the decision-making process, we really don't make the decisions. Professors are concerned with education and with students; administrators focus on the institution and its viability. While these two goals often (and should) intersect, they are not always the same.
The Most Important People in the Institution Are the Secretaries
All of life's major problems can be solved by the departmental secretary. You just have to trust me on this one.
Sometimes Your Best Is Not Good Enough
In my time on the University Rank and Tenure Committee, I came to understand more fully how tenure is granted. Sometimes, a faculty member can do everything right -- publish, teach well, and serve on committees -- and still not win tenure. Because tenure is a limited resource, institutions must weigh carefully whether to grant a financial commitment of employment for life. Sometimes, the needs of the institution outweigh the qualifications of the professor. If there are too may tenured professors in a department, or if more than one person from a department is considered for tenure at the same time, or if a particularly desirable assistant professor is up for tenure in a year or two, hard decisions might have to be made. Very qualified professors are sometimes denied tenure. And, sometimes, less-qualified professors are tenured because the slot is hard to fill and they are the best that the institution is likely to get.
Tenure Limits Your Mobility
Tenure gives a certain kind of freedom, but it also binds us to institutions that would prefer to have the job market stay in its current state, in which faculty members compete for too few positions, instead of institutions competing for faculty members. In other businesses, the companies compete with each other for the best employees. Tenure changes that. The agreement of employment for life means that you go hunting for jobs at other colleges and universities with a big price tag (compared with a new assistant professor) around your neck. With few exceptions, it is not easy to find a position as a tenured associate professor. Applying for an assistant-professor slot as an associate professor is virtually impossible. For some Ph.D.'s. your first job is the only job you will ever have in academe, so choose carefully.
Beyond these small bits of insight there is one other that I think might help you to stay the course on the tenure track. If you can survive, it is worth it. The chance to provide meaning in a student's life, to pursue your intellectual interests, and to live a balanced existence makes all of this worthwhile. Just make sure you know the cost.
