The number of tenure-track creative-writing jobs rose sharply in 1997, a new study shows, but graduates of Masters of Fine Arts programs should not get their hopes up for a university teaching job.
"Even though the numbers have gone up, there are still more students than there are jobs," explains Julie Checkoway, president of the Associated Writing Programs and director of creative writing at the University of Georgia.
Sixty-six tenure-track faculty positions were available in 1997, according to statistics published in the February issue of The Writer's Chronicle, the association's newspaper. That's up from 46 in 1996 -- a 43-per-cent increase. The total of all academic positions listed with the A.W.P., however, increased only slightly, from 228 to 232.
The A.W.P. has not published figures for 1998, but preliminary statistics collected from the organization's job listings between June and December show 206 academic openings.
The Modern Language Association's Job Information List also shows an increase last year in creative-writing jobs (80 such openings appeared on the M.L.A.'s job list in 1998, up from 59 in 1997).
Still, the competition is fierce for those jobs. A survey of the A.W.P.'s member institutions shows that the number of graduates greatly exceeds the number of job openings.And there is a large pool of graduates from previous years who are still vying for jobs. At the 138 institutions that responded to the survey, there were 368 M.A., 543 M.F.A., and 37 Ph.D. degrees awarded in 1997. More than 3,000 students were enrolled in graduate programs at these colleges.
"For us, it's not the crazed bitter festival of denial and blame that the M.L.A. is going through now, because the goal for graduate study in creative writing is first and foremost to be a writer," says David Fenza, executive director of the A.W.P.
Despite the tight job market, some graduates say they don't regret getting an M.F.A. degree.
Kelly Parker is a 1998 M.F.A. graduate of the University of Virginia who currently holds adjunct teaching jobs in English composition at Waubonsee Community College, Kishwaukee Community College, and Northern Illinois University. She says some students who graduated from the creative-writing program at Virginia are dissatisfied because it's so difficult to find a job. "But I don't think they're dissatisfied with the program for not helping them find jobs, because they were in it for the time to write," she says.
"Since I didn't go through the M.F.A. program expecting to come out equipped for the job market, I'm not disillusioned, but rather, pleasantly surprised to have found the adjunct teaching I'm doing now," she says.
Deborah Ager, an adjunct professor of English at Graceland College, who received an M.F.A. from the University of Florida in 1997, worked in fund raising before following her husband to Iowa. She says she lucked out by landing a job at Graceland. "I never really got the sense that anyone was fooling me into thinking I was going to get a job teaching at a university." But, she adds, "I know a lot of people didn't know about career options when they got out."
The last time the academic job market was in a slump, from the 1970s to the early 1980s, creative writing was enjoying a boom. The growth in programs created many new jobs for graduates with M.F.A.'s.
"Nowadays, you definitely need not just one or two publications in magazines but one or two books to move ahead and to really be considered," says Mr. Fenza. "I know of many writers who've published one or two books with good trade publishing houses, and the books receive good reviews, but there are only about 70 or so tenure-track jobs in creative writing in a year, so the competition for those few jobs with over a thousand graduates is very fierce."
Some programs are taking steps to prepare students for the job market:
- The University of Arizona sends a letter with its application materials advising students to think about what they're getting into. According to the letter, academic jobs today will most likely go to people who have published two books. Successful candidates "will be in their mid- or late-thirties, usually having spent over 10 years writing after receiving an M.F.A. being rejected, succeeding, failing," it concludes.
"We want students to come in with their eyes open," says Robert Houston, head of Arizona's program. "That's why we send them this essay, and that's why we tell them before they come into the program, 'Don't expect to get a job with this degree.'"
- The University of Michigan offers financial support -- in the form of tuition remission or stipends -- to all of its M.F.A. students. "We try to support them as much as we can while they're here," says Linda Gregerson, director of Michigan's M.F.A. program, "because they're not likely to waltz into jobs that give them great big salaries the minute they finish the program."
- The Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins University sometimes hires students to teach in the program, and it tries to keep students aware of job opportunities in the area, says Jean McGarry, the program's chair. But she adds, "we're more concerned with giving them guidance about where to publish their work." A program like the Writing Seminars "exists to train artists, not to find them jobs," she says.
Ms. Checkoway, president of the A.W.P., agrees that publishing should be a priority. "The students who get out and don't find jobs tend to be the ones who don't have publications," she says. She adds, however, that there's still "a disconnect between what we groom students for and what's really available" on the job market.
The A.W.P. is taking action on the problem. Board members are writing a set of recommendations -- due out later this year -- to encourage all member programs to warn students about the competitive academic job market and to prepare students to look for work beyond the ivory tower, says Ms. Checkoway.
The association is also trying to disseminate information about career alternatives on its World-Wide Web site and to expand the number of non-academic job opportunities on its job list.
