I loving knowing who is reading what. The most widely read piece, according the home page of The Chron, is this article “Graduate School in the Humanities: Just Don’t” written under the pen name “Thomas H. Benton” by William Pannapacker, who seems happy enough that we know his actual real-life name, affiliation (Hope College — I thought maybe he was making it up, playing on the very idea of hopeless in the profession, but he isn’t), title (associate professor of English), and what he looks like (nice, friendly photograph next to his blog — hiya Professor Pannapacker! Do you go by William, Bill, Will, or Mr. Benton?)
Anyway, I’ve been reading this gentleman’s work (I’ll skip the whole name thing) for many years because I know he’s ruthless in terms of presenting his perspective, smart without being sanctimonious, and because while I can see that he relies on his instincts, I’ve come to trust those instincts.
He seems worried about the next generation of students and scholars, as am I (as are we all) and wants to warn them about the rough seas ahead — he’s the concerned lighthouse captain or the guy with a red flag on top of a sinking ship yelling “GO AROUND, GO AROUND.”
But this last piece has been gnawing on me, and I wanted to figure out why. I’ve decided that it comes down to this paragraph:
“As things stand, I can only identify a few circumstances under which one might reasonably consider going to graduate school in the humanities:
“You are independently wealthy, and you have no need to earn a living for yourself or provide for anyone else.
“You come from that small class of well-connected people in academe who will be able to find a place for you somewhere.
“You can rely on a partner to provide all of the income and benefits needed by your household.
“You are earning a credential for a position that you already hold — such as a high-school teacher — and your employer is paying for it.”
Apart from those belonging to the final category — I presume he’s referring to high school teachers who are returning to graduate school not in order to the join the ranks of those in the university but in order to ferry back what they’ve learned in graduate seminars to their own tribes? — the other categories of folks who can survive graduate education and therefore have a chance of being admitted to the profession and shaping its future are the offspring or the spouses of the rich.
This is a drag. This system whereby the rich are the only ones who can afford the “frivolity” of education had been in place for, oooh, 1,200 years or something, right? This reminds me, more or less, what the professors told Jude: Son, stick with a job that’ll make you some money because you’re unlikely to be able to make a go of this; if you can do something useful and practical, do it; we only admit gentlemen to real universities (as opposed to trade schools) because they will be useless for the rest of their lives anyway. It won’t hurt them to learn Greek the way it’ll hurt you.
Or skip Hardy and go to Shaw: When I hear professors, in essence, telling their students “Don’t do as I do, even though it seems an enviable life; do as I tell you, and find yourself a good day’s work,” it reminds me of Eliza in Pygmailion rising up and telling Henry that she’s not going to do what he advises and run a flower shop but will instead herself become a teacher.
I’d hate to think of universities and colleges in the future being run almost exclusively by the inbred, entitled, snot-nosed (literal or metaphorical) offspring of college and university professors (“You come from that small class of well-connected people in academe who will be able to find a place for you somewhere”). I would sure hate to give education back to the merely rich. And it would be a damn shame, for social life if nothing else, if only those who are partnered up with somebody with a permanent full-time job outside the academy could apply.
Not that I’m bitter, or, for that matter, ungrateful to Pannapacker/Benton for his/their provocative arguments. I’d just like to be on the hiring committee and make sure that Jude and Eliza get a shot at a tenure-track.
22 Responses to Jude, Eliza, and Access
pannapacker - January 9, 2010 at 3:30 pm
Hi Professor Barreca,Thank you for writing about the “just Don’t Go” piece that I wrote a year ago. I guess it’s been revived because it appeared on Arts and Letters Daily, and because of all the attention to the drop-off in the number of openings for academic jobs: two years in a row with no end in sight. I appreciate the criticism the piece has received here (and from hundreds of readers who have blogged on the piece or have written to me directly). If readers want to know how my thinking on this subject has developed, I hope they will look at the two follow-up pieces I’ve written for the Chronicle:http://chronicle.com/article/Just-Dont-Go-Part-2/44786/http://chronicle.com/article/Dodging-the-Anvil/63274/Essentially, I agree with what you’ve written here. I was someone who didn’t fit in any of the listed categories, but if I met my younger self today, I would tell him not to go to graduate school if his goal was to become a professor. That’s just not realistic anymore. If he wanted to go just to learn, and he had a full fellowship, I would still warn him that graduate schools socialize people into believing that leaving equals failure–and they generally don’t encourage students to consider other options or develop the skills or networks to explore them. If he insisted on going, I would encourage him to look for ways to change the culture of graduate education: not to be a docile student, hoping for one of the few remaining opportunities, but to support the academic labor movement and to work towards a doctorate with a non-academic career in mind. And to never, ever work as an adjunct anywhere unless they are paying an appropriate wage. I know you know that I’m not saying that academe should be reserved for the rich and well-connected. But to be clear: I am saying that academe is turning into a winner-take-all culture favoring the already privileged, reflecting trends in the larger economic system. But that’s a bigger problem than I can address as a mere higher-education columnist. Regarding my by-line: I used to use my pseudonym exclusively. After about five years–when I realized that Hope College supported my writing for the Chronicle–I thought I could reveal my real name, but most readers recognized “Thomas H. Benton” by then, so I guess I am stuck with it forever. Still, it’s not a bad substitute for “Pannapacker.” But you can call me “Bill” if I can call you “Gina.”
jffoster - January 10, 2010 at 8:20 am
It’s not “the frivolity of [all] education”. But whether “frivolity” might apply to graduate (or even some undergraduate) “education” in the postmodernist whining humanities might at least be considered.
blueconcrete - January 10, 2010 at 11:46 am
Aren’t you clever, jffoster.
11242283 - January 11, 2010 at 7:21 am
In my small department at a regional comprehensive institution (the kind of job no research university prepares you for), we already have about 40% of our faculty who are the sons/daughters of professors!!! Talk about bitter . . . . esp. as their now retired parents had pretty sweet jobs all things considered. I routinely hand out Pannapacker’s article to undergrads who want to go to grad school — this year I have also refused to write any letters of recommnendations for MA or PhD programs — but many of my colleagues still see it the numbers of our undergrads who go on to do graduate work as the only measure of “success” for our dept. I guess this makes me one of the dons that counseled Jude to stay in his place, but honestly, I think I sleep better at night in this circumstance than if I were encouraging people to go on for a dead end degree.
cleverclogs - January 11, 2010 at 10:02 am
I went to graduate school because I like learning. Interestingly, I have never considered higher eduation to have anything to do with employability in a specific field. That’s not what it’s there for – it’s there to train the mind and a well-trained mind is always employable. I know because, before returning to school, I worked in staffing for years. Job candidates’ actual degrees mattered very little.I forgot all that when that grad school socialization, which Mr. Pannapacker so accurately pinpoints, started up, but the poor job prospects reminded me. Many people working in academia have been brainwashed themselves from having gone through their own program and never having worked a job outside of academia (and I don’t mean a job to pay for school, I mean a real job). These people are going to have to start readjusting their ideas of “professionalization” if they want to keep attracting grad students, which, let’s face it, they have to do if they want to avoid teaching, say, five sections of comp every semester. If they really feel the PhD is only for an elite class of educators, well, shame on them. But don’t worry, that attitude is economically untenable, and if it persists, I think we’ll see these programs atrophy and die, which will also be a shame.
goxewu - January 11, 2010 at 10:04 am
“…this year I have also refused to write any letters of recommnendations for MA or PhD programs”This is stupid, unfair and unethical. While Prof. 11242283 is certaintly not required to write letters of recommendation, it’s wrong for him/her to assume an across-the-board position of not doing so on the grounds that there won’t be any jobs for his/her students at the end of their graduate-studies trail. Whether to spend lots of time and money on a graduate education is the student’s, not the professor’s. And if the student is recommendable material, the professor should write the recommendation; it’s part of the job. Counseling someone not to bother with graduate school is one thing, “refusing” to write a deserved letter of recommendation quite another.
goxewu - January 11, 2010 at 10:48 am
Sorry: “Whether to spend lots of time and money on a graduate education is the student’s, not the professor’s, decision.”
fcshofstra - January 11, 2010 at 11:54 am
I agree wholeheartedly with Gina’s analysis of Bill’s piece, and have been blogging about exactly this issue. The United States has given up the idea of education as a public good. Since education has become a private good, it has gone the way of all capitalist products, i.e., it is now something only the rich have. Since Americans have in the last fifty years tended to consider themselves rich, they didn’t seem to see a problem with this development… until just recently. The public is getting cranky about the cost of higher education, and higher education has not responded. It is on us to explain why an educated citizenry is a public good and work to ensure that our state and federal governments agree and shoulder their share of the cost. Education solely as job training is a poor plan for any democracy.The loss of a democratized and democratizing educational system is only one negative effect of this. We’re also bound to have a lower quality professoriate when money and not ability determines who can get Ph.D.s.
prgreen - January 11, 2010 at 2:53 pm
I told my husband (who dropped out of a doctoral program in physics with his masters to pursue a career in software) about the original article, and he wholeheartedly agreed. He mentioned that the problem students have now is that they see these older professors living financially stable lives in a tough economy and think it’s a good bet, while in reality those professors bought houses and paid for their education during a time when those things cost less and jobs in academe paid more relative to the rest of society. Unfortunately, that’s just not the case anymore, and it seems like students earning a doctorate need to be prepared to spend the rest of their career paying back their alma maters for those degrees.
gtkarn - January 11, 2010 at 6:48 pm
Sensible observations, Gina, but, sad to say,the qualifications cited in the original piece seem spot on. Also, I liked your referece to Hardy (the book was recommended to me in high school: I loved it, taught it in college as well), and who would disagree about the question of inbreeding? And yet: I ran into plenty of alleged “working class” colleagues who didn’t give a frack about the proletarization of teaching, as long as they had their upper division classes and seminars to teach. This sort of class “forgetfullness” should be acknowledged.I, too would like to be on a hiring committee for a tenure track position so I could have a say. The deeper issue of course, is whether such committees amount to an endangered species.Readers may be interested in Ehrenreich’s take on a similar theme. See:See:http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/570eea70-fbe0-11de-9c29-00144feab49a.htmlFinally: thanks to Bill, for the other references. To fchofstra (#8): well said. Forward it to Obama or Arne Duncan and tell us what happens.
madamesmartypants - January 11, 2010 at 7:46 pm
I agree with Dr. Barreca on their being very little change in education–especially higher ed–being reserved for the rich. What I think is different about now–compared with Hardy and Shaw, at least–is that now we have the expectation that one need not be born a “gentleman” (note also the male bias there) to get an education.That’s simply not the case, and I think Dr. Pannapacker makes good points in his comment (#1) as to why that’s not the case. My own perspective is that getting a PhD in the humanities means an average of 9 years without a living wage, good health benefits, secure employment, or savings, and probably at least some added debt. That’s nine years you can spend getting seniority and a decent salary somewhere else. And that’s not even taking into consideration what happens after you get the degree…As for 11242283′s comment about not writing recs– I disagree with gowexu on this. Why advance a cause that you vehemently oppose? Recommendations are voluntary, not forced; it’s a part of the job, but that doesn’t mean you must write a recommendation for everyone who asks for it.
jffoster - January 12, 2010 at 7:30 am
With the question of recommendations wrestled too I have. Especially for students who want to go to graduate school in the gooier ends of Cultural Anthropology. I try to discourage them — and have for over 15 years because I never believed the “lots of jobs to replace retiring Silent Generation and early Baby Boomer faculty”. I tried particularly hard to discourage any student who wasn’t likely admissible to a top notch graduate program even in the pricklier ends of the field. Sice finding decent academic jobs was hard even for people with good degrees from really good programs, my argument was that if you can’t get into a really good graduate program, you might be well behoven to find something else. And I will sometimes tell a student I can’t recommend them for a program they want to apply to because I don’t think they are academically up to that program. But..when push finally comes to shove and the student really wants to apply for a graduate program I can honestly write them a good to excellent recommendation for, I go ahead and do it. They are young adults–not children, and I think ultimately those who have to lie in the bed should make the decision of which bed to turn the covers down of.
goxewu - January 12, 2010 at 8:37 am
madamesmartypants is wrong about me being wrong about letters of recommendation–about which, incidentally, I did not say or imply they should be given to “everyone who asks” for them. I said they should be given to students who “deserved” them.1. It’s the student’s decision, not the professor’s, to attend graduate school or not. The professor should not practice the severest form of career counseling–actually PREVENTING the student from pursuing a given occupation–by refusing to write a letter of recommendation just because he/she doesn’t think that occupation (ironically, the professor’s own field!) is viable. This is why refusing to write a letter of recommendation for this reason is unfair.2. A student who is recommendable material, i.e., an outstanding student in the professor’s field, should get as a matter of course, a letter of recommendation from that professor. Sure, the letter is “voluntary,” but so are the common courtesies, such as saying hello to that student in the hall. It’s also an understood part of the job, and not to do it is unethical.3. If the student goes ahead and applies to graduate school in the professor’s field, the absence of a letter from that professor will be conspicuous, perhaps to the point of the student’s not being accepted. This is a real nasty thing to do to a student just because the professor doesn’t think following in his/her occupational path is viable.4. If the professor is within his/her ethical rights to refuse to write an otherwise deserved letter of recommendation because of his/her opinion of the job prospects in his/her own field, then it’s within those same rights for a professor to refuse to write a letter of recommendation for the student to pursue another field. Let’s say the student is in comp lit and, for some reason, wants to be an artist, and asks the comp lit professor to write a recommendation to graduate school in art, testifying to his/her intelligence, erudition, work habits, imagination, etc. May the professor ethically refuse because he/she thinks it’s too difficult to make a living as an artist? Or if the same student wants to go to medical school, may the professor refuse to write the letter because he/she thinks the health care system in the U.S. is too profit-driven? Or the same to business school because of the practices of big banks in the meltdown. I’d say no to those questions. Actively preventing an excellent student from pursuing a given occupation is stupid behavior on the part of the professor.In sum, professors should help their excellent students pursue whatever occupational path the students choose, and should NOT be in the business of preventing them from doing so.Prof. Foster has it exactly right: Go ahead and counsel students as to the brutal truth about graduate school and becoming a professor, but if the student is deserving of a letter of recommendation and still wants to go to graduate school, it’s the professor’s ethical duty to write it.
pannapacker - January 12, 2010 at 8:55 am
I just want to make sure that my position is not associated with the view that professors should not write letters of recommendation for students applying to graduate school. I believe that students should be given realistic, practical information about their career choices. I provide that information if I can. If I do not know about a particular career field, I send them to Career Services or to other faculty members who may have better information. Most of all, I advise students to do their own research and not to rely on the opinions of others who may have conflicts of interest, outdated information, and unwarranted optimism.If a student has decided to apply to graduate school, it is my responsibility as a professor to help that student achieve his or her goals while, at the same time, being accountable to the profession by writing a recommendation that is an honest assessment of the student’s capabilities based on past performance. I believe it is unethical to refuse to write a recommendation for a student who deserves one, no matter what I think of that student’s choices.
parkiso - January 12, 2010 at 12:18 pm
While I know the original article was aimed at students in Humanities, there are majors/fields where they are hiring – business in particular come to mind. For example, we cannot find Ph.D. trained accountants at my university for love or money: other fields in business are equally scarce. So the idea of graduate school (to go or not to go) is very much field specific.
mercy_otis_warren - January 13, 2010 at 4:43 pm
In fairness to 11242283, I don’t believe he/she ever implied that these were excellent students for whom he/she refused to write. Maybe they were; maybe they weren’t. Regardless, note that 11242283 identifies his/her school as a regional comprehensive university. Maybe it’s time also to confront the dirty secret that there are certain students from certain programs who are *more* likely to make a go at this whole TT thing–the prospects Pannapacker bemoans are not, it seems to me, equally distributed among all echelons, as we sometimes like to think. In other words, what students, from what undergraduate schools, are more likely to get into the kind of PhD programs that will get them the TT job? My own field is a typically sucktacular humanities field. But guess what? It sucks a lot less if one of my cohort finishes a PhD from Princeton. And those newly minted PhDs from Princeton were, generally, not likely to have been middling undergrads at Southeastern Missouri State or Abilene Christian or Florida International. So what is 11242283′s supposed obligation not only if the students approaching him/her are not that zippy in the first place (in my state flagship, I’ve had a number of C and D students ask for recs for grad school), but, more disturbingly, if 11242283 has concluded that his/her university is simply not the kind of school that *usually* (there are always exceptions!) feeds into the kind of PhD program that will eventually place students? (Some of us may remember an AHA study from a few years back that discovered that new TT historians had gotten their BAs from a pool of only about 20 undergraduate institutions.) In this case, 11242283 is not so much making the blanket assumption that “the job market will be terrible in 8 years, so why bother?” rather than making the honest and realistic, if undemocratically uncomfortable, judgment that the kid is *already* on a disadvantaged track.
goxewu - January 14, 2010 at 10:07 am
The author of #16 might want to know that they sell, fairly cheaply, in most drugstores, these things called reading glasses. With a pair, he might have been able to discern that 11242283 actually wrote:”I have also refused to write any letters of recommendations for MA or PhD programs”That’s “ANY letters of recommendation,” as in none at all, no matter how good/qualified for an MA or PhD program the student was. Of course, this could have been an off-year for 11242283, but the context of the comment makes it clear that the reason for not writing ANY letters recommendation was the professor’s assessment that advanced degrees in his/her field are a “dead end.”What a great policy! “I’ll protect you from going to dead-end graduate school by effectively sabotaging your opportunity to try, by conspicuously withholding a letter from your primary undergrad professor in the field.”
goxewu - January 14, 2010 at 10:11 am
Sorry. It’s probably better than 50/50 that MOW is “she.” It’s just that in my experience, this sort of “This [whack!] is for your own good” and “Believe me, this hurts me more than it does you” stuff usually comes from my fellow males.
mercy_otis_warren - January 14, 2010 at 12:07 pm
I can read just fine, thanks, helped by my powerful flow of estrogen. (My Wikipedia entry can clue you in to my gender.) Goxewu, thanks for the snark returned for what I intended as a fair, if painfully realistic, point. I am well aware that 11242283 said “any.” But I don’t really see how that changes the key argument I was trying to make: that the reasons for the difficult imbalance between those who *want* TT jobs in the humanities and those who *get* TT jobs in the humanities begin *far earlier* than we often like to admit. The tracks leading up to those jobs are far longer, more narrow, and more constricted than we might democratically like. (Again, check out the AHA study on historians’ undergrad schools.) We don’t know 11242283′s situation, and he/she obviously cited the poor job market as reasons not to write. But for all we know, 11242283′s school only sends undergrads on to low-tier master’s programs, that then send *their* students on to low-tier PhD-granting institutions that keep anemic programs around only for ego or TAs, despite appalling placement records. And cold, hard fact: in the humanities, people from low-profile or low-tier PhD programs tend not to get TT jobs. Yes, one would hope that the genius undergrad with 800 GRE verbal scores will still get a letter from 11242283 (although no letter is better than lukewarm letter). But I don’t quite see how the decision not to write for anyone is necessary cruel or deserves pilloring, when 11242283 — with more knowledge than we have about his/her students, field, and undergraduate school — does so because he/she on principle doesn’t want to contribute to having kids be miserable adjuncts a decade from now. (We all know that kids get into PhD programs without letters from profs in their immediate subfield — I did — so I’m not sure why you equate his/her refusal with single-handedly killing a dream.) Goxewu, if you are discontented with the elitist structure in the humanities (NB the to-me repellent session at last weekend’s AHA on parent-child historian teams, a celebration of our growing class calcification in the humanities), there’s lots to be done–for example, if you’re on a search committee, don’t automatically swoon over an Ivy League candidate even if the work is not good. Read those writing samples from grad-program applicants carefully, regardless of undergrad school. But I’m not sure how faulting 11242283 (as if the rec-refusal is in order to be a jackass) or branding my observation of this elitist structure as “it’s for your own good” and “this hurts me more than it hurts you” (???) is really fair.
goxewu - January 14, 2010 at 3:20 pm
Re #19:Try–and it’s a kind of elegant try–as one may, one cannot bury the plain and simple fact that 11242283 said, “this year I have also refused to write ANY letters of recommnendations for MA or PhD programs…” [emphasis mine].And 11242283′s comment (#4) made it perfectly clear that this boycott had nothing to do with the quality of his/her students. It obviously has entirely to do with something that could be put as, “While you may think that my refusing–as your primary undergrad professor in the field in which you wish to go to graduate school–to write you a perfectly deserved letter of recommendation is effectively sabotaging your however-ill-advised career ambition, believe me that ten, twenty years down the road you’ll realize it was for your own good, and you’ll thank me.”The ethics of this boycott stink so much that they’re probably grounds for a formal complaint to the dean.The ancillary issues raised in #19 are, in regard to a professor’s boycott of writing letters of recommendations, essentially evasions. “The tracks leading up to those jobs are far longer, more narrow, and more constricted than we might democratically like,” for instance, implies that it’s OK to put the final nail in the coffin of a student’s ambition because the lid was already partly in place. “For all we know, 11242283′s school only sends undergrads on to low-tier master’s programs, that then send *their* students on to low-tier PhD-granting institutions that keep anemic programs around only for ego or TAs, despite appalling placement records” says that it’s OK to prevent an otherwise deserving student from going to graduate school because it wasn’t going to do him/her any good anyway. “We all know that kids get into PhD programs without letters from profs in their immediate subfield — I did — so I’m not sure why you equate his/her refusal with single-handedly killing a dream” says it’s OK to refuse to write a deserving student a recommendation because it’s really not needed anyway. (And if that’s the case, 12242283′s reason for refusing to write it is either just laziness, or plausible deniability for doing the student any harm.)Whether or not I’m “discontented with the elitist structure in the humanities” is irrelevant to my objection to professors’ refusing to write letters of recommendation for deserving student just because they happen to be discontented with it, or with the job prospects in a certain field.The upside of the intelligent, educated academic mind is that it can so adroitly plumb arcane meanings in esoteric material. The downside is that it can spin these complicated, delicately pseudo-rational webs of rationalizations for the the ugliest, most unfair and unethical forms of professorial behavior.Bottom line: You can tell your students whatever home truths you want about your field or graduate school in general, but if your student is deserving of a letter of recommendation and asks for one, write it. It’s part of your job.
mercy_otis_warren - January 15, 2010 at 11:24 am
Once again, Goxewu, I didn’t even *try* to “bury” the ANY part. I acknowledged it quite frankly. (Please see where I said “I am well aware that 11242283 said ‘any.’”) The basic disagreement here is that in looking at the profession, 11242283 believes that his/her ethical choice is not to write AT ALL. Presumably, this is so he/she won’t contribute to a glut of unemployed humanities PhDs in the aggregate, and individual miserable adjuncts he knows specifically. Looking at the profession, you believe that the ethical choice is to write for everyone “deserving” of a letter (on what grounds? defined how? the student got an A in a course? or a student has a decent shot of getting a TT job in ten years?).You clearly believe *your* ethics are true and regnant, and the universal ones we as academics must all adopt. 11242283 is ethically wrong, and you are in a position to inform him/her of both his ethical and professional responsibilities. Your position is principled, but anyone who disagrees with you is unprincipled, only “rationalizing” with sophistry an ugly position (why bother? why not just say “I don’t wanna write these goddam letters”?).But one can just as easily turn it around and say that you, and everyone else who automatically rubber-stamps “good” students as “deserving” (“but she got an A in my class! she can make it in this brutal field!”) in their desire to move on in the humanities, is making the real unethical choice. One might say that you are enabling an exploitative process, and it’s professors like you that ultimately help a university get away with paying 2k a course for English comp.But if on principle you want to write for everyone who’s “deserving,” that’s your choice. The difference is that I wouldn’t tell you sententiously “it’s part of your job” to make a different ethical choice about how to operate, as a professor, within the dysfunctional system of grad school/TT in the humanities. It seems to me an important secondary field of Pannapacker’s essays and responses to them is to question what precisely are humanities professors’ obligations and roles in this mess. And I don’t agree with you that the best solution is simply to inform everyone that *your* choice is the absolutely correct one, and an inherent part of the job description — so much so that those who don’t follow it should be reported to the dean. Nothing gets dialogue moving more richly than not only forming an orthodox position, but also asserting that anyone who doesn’t agree with it does so for crappy, dissembling reasons: “spin[ning] complicated, delicately pseudo-rational webs of rationalizations.” (By the way, your disagreeing with my points doesn’t make them “evasions.” Those tracks are long and narrow. That may be a reason not to write. Yes, that may be a nail in a coffin that’s already there. You may not like that fact, but how is it an “evasion” in the basic argument?) God forbid that someone actually behave or believe differently than you do, Goxewu — even refusing to write ANY recommendations — because they’ve simply come to a different conclusion about how to act ethically in this terrible market.Goxewu, are you a professor in the humanities? Then — since you’ve informed us all of our ethical and professional duties — I’d like to know how you distinguish between students wanting recs who are “deserving” and those who are “undeserving.” (After all, I’d like to avoid getting reported to my dean.)
goxewu - January 15, 2010 at 1:19 pm
Yes, MOW acknowledged that 11242283 said “any.” But then she went on as though she hadn’t. Acknowledgements like hers are why the term “pro forma” is in the dictionary.Prof. 11242283 almost certainly believes that his/er policy is the right one. But Prof. 11242283 is wrong. And I’m no more out-of-bounds in saying that than are others on this thread who say, in effect, that Prof. 11242283 is right.The policy of not writing ANY letters of recommendation, no matter what the quality of the student, in order not to contribute of the glut of unemployed Ph.D.’s, is to help deprive the student of the chance to be an exception. If not contributing to a glut were to override the talent and ambition of the student, no matter how great they were, we’d have NO recommendations for graduate school in music, theater, dance, art or creative writing. Like I said, go ahead and tell the deserving student of the long odds of beating the glut, tell him/her to go into plumbing or trucking instead, but if the student still wants to apply to graduate school and, for academic and personal qualities, merits a recommendation, write it. It’s part of your job, like office hours and committees.In the end, a policy such as Prof. 11242283 is actually cowardly: trying to solve the glut on the back of the student. If Prof. 11242283 believes there’s a glut, he/she might consider resigning in order to help unclog the pipeline. But that would involve sacrifice (giving up the dream of being, say, an eminence grise English professor) on Prof. 11242283′s part. How much easier to lay it off on the student with the rationale that he/she is doing the student a favor! (I can already hear the fallback excuse: “If I resign, the Dean will replace me with adjuncts, so I’m really doing the whole profession a favor by hanging on to my job.” Right.)I was a full professor in the humanities, and still do visiting stints if the conditions are right.To say I favor writing recommendations for “EVERYONE who is deserving” [emphasis mine] is rhetorical sleight-of-hand that implies there’s a crowd. I write very few letters, and when I demur I say that I’m sorry and explain to the student why he/she doesn’t make it over the bar. This semester I recommended one student who applied to two graduate programs in the same field. And I wrote an individual letter to each program–none of this “To Whom It May Concern” stuff.To be “deserving” of a letter of recommendation from me to a graduate program, the student has to be not only an “A” student–and I’m a hard grader–but a standout among recent “A” students and have written a paper or two that I consider truly exceptional. Moreover, the student has to have evidenced personal qualities that I think will make the student more than just passable in graduate school. Most important, I want to see something in the student that indicates that he/she would be a good professor (original researcher, good teacher) if that’s what the graduate program is constructed to produce. So, maybe one in 25 “A” students, and maybe only one in 100 or more asks. And of the ones for whom I write letters, many of those decide in the end (for mostly lack of money or family constraints) not to go to graduate school.If you were a good, conscientious Dean, what would you think if a student came to you and said:”I’m a student of Prof. Smith, and he’s my advisor and main professor in my major. I’ve taken three advanced classes from him, never gotten anything below an ‘A,’ even on an individual paper. In class discussion, he compliments me for bringing up important points and talking about them perceptively. At an office-hours visit, I asked him what he thought of my overall performance, he said I was one of the best students he’s had for a while. But when I asked him for a letter of recommendation to a graduate program in the field, he said he was sorry, but that a ‘glut’ in the field that would make it difficult for me to find employment after graduate school meant that he wouldn’t write one. I said that I know there’s a glut and that the chances of finding a full-time ABD position once I get my Ph.D. are small, but that I’d like to try, he said he still couldn’t do it because it’s his policy not to write any letters of recommendation at all.”Finally, I give you Prof. Pannapacker himself, who said in #14, “I believe it is unethical to refuse to write a recommendation for a student who deserves one, no matter what I think of that student’s choices.”