January 9, 2009

How to Be Happy in Academe

By Gregory Pence

Recently a young male professor in philosophy astonished me when he turned down a tenure-track job offer at a small, rural public university and then decided to leave academe. If he couldn't get a great job at a research university, he told me, or at least a job in a great city, he would change fields.

Another junior acquaintance in philosophy, a single woman approaching 30, confessed to me recently that she might quit her tenure-track job at a private college in a large city, a job