Most of my life as a philosopher has been really good. I had an excellent time as a graduate student. And my first five years teaching at a liberal-arts college in a Midwestern city were amazing. I had good students, I developed my skills as a teacher, and I explored all that the city had to offer with some very good friends.
However, my life from 2011 to 2013 was in some ways similar to that of Job. No, I didn’t break out in boils. But I did lose some of the things that were most valuable to me. In 2011 and 2012, I lost my job and my condo. And I knew that to continue my career, I would be forced to leave a city I loved, where I had many dear friends. Yet, in 2013, I got a new job, even better than my old one, and moved to the West Coast, where I’ve made new friends.
In what follows, I’m going to tell you about the worst two years of my career and how I made it through, in hopes that this will be of help to junior faculty and to candidates going on the academic job market.
In April 2005, as I was finishing my dissertation, I received two job offers. The first was a tenure-track position from a state university near Boston. The job would have required me to teach four philosophy classes a semester, and the place didn’t have a philosophy major. The second was at a small liberal-arts college in the Midwest. It wanted to hire a visiting assistant professor to serve as a replacement for a member of its philosophy department who would be serving as dean. I would be able to teach three classes a semester at a college with sharp students, about 25 of whom were philosophy majors. Although it was a non-tenure-track position, the offer came with a four-year contract — and one of the members of the department was in his 70s.
My good friend and dissertation director advised me: “It seems clear that you think that the job at the liberal-arts college is the better job, but it’s a non-tenure-track job, and if you take it, you’ve got to publish!” It was sound advice. It was also advice that I would ignore.
I spent the next seven years at that liberal-arts college, where I designed and taught eight entirely new courses but published only three articles. That was a mistake.
So why did I focus on teaching instead of publishing?
Well, to be blunt, I didn’t feel like my research was having much of an impact. My articles were published in obscure third-tier journals, where I can only assume they reached a very limited audience. Conversely, teaching always felt real. And my institution, like many other liberal-arts colleges, claimed that teaching was more important than publishing.
Word of advice: If you accept a non-tenure-track position, develop two or three standard courses that you can easily teach, so that you can focus your energies on publishing. And if people at your institution claim that teaching is more important than research, unless you are at a community college, don’t believe them.
In 2011, when a colleague announced his retirement, I applied for the tenure-track opening. In my seven years at the college, I had invested myself in the community, cultivated relationships with dozens of my colleagues, and developed a successful teaching style. I had done an excellent job of teaching lots of different classes and already had more publications than some people who had received tenure at the college. But when the tenure-track position finally opened up, the department didn’t even offer me an on-campus interview.
Instead it brought three other candidates to the campus and hired a very qualified external candidate who was straight out of graduate school with limited teaching experience. Two months later, without advertising the position or allowing me the opportunity to apply, the college offered a second full-time, tenure-track position in the department to “Joseph,” a long-term adjunct in philosophy who was the husband of “Mary,” dean of faculty for the previous six years.
I felt as if my colleagues had betrayed me. But, somehow, I never even raised my voice in anger against them.
Another word of advice when you feel like shouting at your colleagues: Read Aristotle’s Ethics. In particular, read the “Nicomachean Ethics,” Book 1, Section 10. It’s my favorite passage in all of philosophy: “Now many events happen by chance, and events differing in importance; small pieces of good fortune or of its opposite clearly do not weigh down the scales of life one way or the other, but a multitude of great events if they turn out well will make life more blessed, … while if they turn out ill they crush and maim blessedness; for they both bring pain with them and hinder many activities. Yet, even in these nobility shines through, when a man bears with resignation many great misfortunes, not through insensibility to pain but through nobility and greatness of soul. If activities are, as we said, what determines the character of life, no blessed man can become miserable; for he will never do the acts that are hateful and mean.”
In that passage, Aristotle offers two basic ideas:
- When something bad happens to you, if you don’t control your emotions, you can do things that will make your situation even worse. We see people do this all the time, like the guy whose girlfriend breaks up with him so he goes out drinking, gets into a fight, and ends up in jail. His situation was bad, but by failing to control his emotions, he makes it worse.
- Regardless of the bad things that happen, you have the freedom to choose to live virtuously. And if you do, you will avoid the misery and self-hatred that will result from doing wicked deeds yourself. Even in the most wretched of circumstances, we can continue to enjoy the exercise of our virtues.
In 2012, I read that passage at least 100 times. It was remarkably helpful. What else helped? Meditation. Yoga. Spending time with friends. (I should take this opportunity to thank my friends for repeatedly trying to talk sense into me when I had steam coming out of my ears.)
False humility also comes in handy in moments of career stress. Nietzsche argued that the humble man is like a worm who is stepped on and curls itself up to avoid being stepped on again. Nietzsche offered an adequate critique of humility, but false humility is something entirely different. With false humility, you can hate your critics the whole time. To borrow a phrase from Julia Kristeva, you can be “a hatred that smiles.”
I thought about hiring a lawyer and suing. After all, the college had created a tenure-track position and hired a philosopher without advertising the job or interviewing any other candidates — not to mention the nepotism problem. I might have had a good case.
I knew a tenure-track professor who had sued her institution and won. However, after receiving a settlement, she was unable to find another job in higher education. In the academic job market, it is difficult to get a job if you don’t have a solid letter of recommendation from your previous employer, and it’s very difficult to get that letter if you sue.
So in 2012, I was in a bad state. What was the way out? My solution: Kiss their asses and get a new job. My teaching record was outstanding, and my colleagues knew it. I sensed that they felt guilty about how I had been treated, and I was able to use that to my advantage. I smiled. I was polite. I never raised my voice in anger. And I asked for, and got, a letter of recommendation.
Back on the job market in 2013, I received six first-round interviews, two on-campus interviews, and was offered a job at a university out west. When I listened to the voice-mail message offering me the position, I wept.
Life is better now. I live in a place where the weather is always beautiful. Most days, I enjoy my students and my colleagues. I’m on the tenure track, and with hard work and a bit of luck, I’m hoping that in three years’ time I’ll finally get tenure.
I’m also learning to surf. I’ve got a seven-foot surfboard, which I have affectionately named Don Quixote. Some days, when I paddle out, I don’t catch any waves. Some days I catch more than a dozen. But each time I get out of the ocean, I emerge as a better person: calmer, more relaxed, with a greater sense of generosity and a better sense of humor. I feel as if the ocean is washing my sins away. And, some day, I think, I might find peace and joy.
In closing, I would like to offer the following advice to graduate students:
- Taking a non-tenure-track position over a tenure-track job is a risky gamble, no matter how you rationalize it.
- Even at a “teaching college,” before tenure, you’ve got to make sure that you focus primarily on research, not teaching.
- Hire a lawyer only if you are willing to end your academic career.
- Remember that you will need letters of recommendation from your senior colleagues to get your next job.
- And when you feel like yelling at your department or institution, read Aristotle, meditate, talk with your friends, practice false humility, and send out job applications.