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March 12, 2008, 05:33 PM ET
The Disappearing Job Offer
Heather D. Flowe thought she had her first tenure-track job nailed down after she received an e-mail message last December about an offer from the psychology department at California State University-Dominguez Hills. Over the following months, she and the dean of the College of Natural and Behavioral Sciences even agreed on how much she would be paid ($65,000 for her first academic year and $16,000 for the summer), and she started talking with the psychology department about her teaching schedule for the fall.
But this month, Ms. Flowe received an e-mail message from the dean, Charles F. Hohm, saying the university would not be able to hire her after all. It stands to lose $6-million as part of state budget cuts. So the campus has decided not to hire six new professors that it had been negotiating with, including Ms. Flowe.
Sam Wiley, interim provost for Dominguez Hills, says that technically Ms. Flowe never received an offer from the university. All job offers need his OK and must be made in writing, he says. An e-mail message in which Dean Hohm referred to the “offer” that the university had extended Ms. Flowe “was language the dean shouldn’t have used,” says Mr. Wiley. Mr. Hohm did not return telephone calls and e-mail messages seeking comment.
Meanwhile, Ms. Flowe — who spent two years as a postdoctoral fellow and one year as a visiting lecturer at the University of California at San Diego, where she earned her doctorate in 2005 — doesn’t know what she’ll do next. Two other campuses had asked her to interview for jobs this year, but she turned them down because she thought she had secured the CSU position. Now most faculty jobs for this coming fall have already been filled. Ms. Flowe is contemplating moving to Florida to live with her parents if she doesn’t find a position.
“I just canceled my dental appointment,” she says. “I can’t afford that anymore.”
Categories: Faculty-hiring
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