By my count of positions discussed on the essential Academic Jobs Wiki: Seven of forty-three positions in French with “interviews scheduled” were interviewing by Skype and bypassing the MLA convention in Los Angeles this week. (More fools them: The rains are ending and the forecast is lovely.) Five of the seven were tenure track positions. In German three of 27 tenure track and three of 18 nontenurable positions are bypassing MLA. Traditional English literature fields aren’t Skyping much as yet (just one or two in most fields), but among writing specialists at least seven tenure-track jobs of the 150 or so discussed are bypassing MLA.
Given that most MLA cities aren’t as desirable in early January as Los Angeles (Toronto, you know I’m talking about you!), will the cost savings of $5,000 to $10,000 per search lead to more Skyping and less flying of three to seven socially deficient individuals across the country to imprison them in their hotel rooms for most of three days? Um, yeah, duh.
The question is: How far will this trend go? It’s leading in writing and the foreign languages, where money is tightest and allegiance to the MLA is lowest. Let’s say most of the English literature and cultural studies fields follow suit—with spikes during years of conventions scheduled for, say, Philadelphia.
Remember that the profession’s hiring class is aging faster than a horse on crack, and try to imagine the fading appeal of long flights and long days listening to the young folks (“Wah wah wah Zizek blah blah blah three manuscripts under consideration”) followed by toddling over ice-filled sidewalks for stale cheddar soup and an oxidized chardonnay. So much more comfy to tune out in front of your video screen and read your email while pretending to listen.
Indeed: No need to interview at the lousy times chosen by MLA at all. Heck, why not interview at your own convenience? Not six interviews in a row, but three interviews every Friday afternoon in December. Or November. Or January.
So what’s the impact on MLA? With fields at the leading edge of adoption at 10 percent of interviews already, let’s pick a number for a near-term plateau, a conservative number like 25 percent of all interviews bypassing MLA—probably higher in writing and foreign languages. Let’s say in five years, roughly five hundred interviews might bypass the convention. That’s roughly two thousand interviewers who might not otherwise come, and at least a couple of hundred interviewees, those whose only interviews are Skyped.
MLA’s budget is several million a year, so losing a fraction of convention income isn’t going to bankrupt it. But let’s say conservatively they collect $200 a head per attendee. That’s a hit of almost a half-million a year right there. It’s probably more, because many folks renew their dues just to attend the convention, and there’s the rake from booksellers, some of whom might no longer come, hotel bookings, etc. And half a million pays five to seven staffers, without whom MLA can offer fewer services, thus diminishing the luster of the whole operation, making credible eventual future bypassings. Chances are excellent that 50 percent or more of writing jobs alone will bypass MLA, given the deservedly poor reputation of the organization in the field. If I were doing MLA resource allocation, I’d be thinking of a likely half-million dollar hit, and praying that it wasn’t a full million.
This question and others will be discussed at the panel “New Tools, Hard Times: Social Networking and the Academic Crisis.” This Thursday January 6, 5:15–6:30 p.m., 406A, L.A. Convention Center. A special session. Presiding: Meredith L. McGill, Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick Speakers: Rosemary G. Feal, MLA, Marc Bousquet, Santa Clara Univ., Brian Croxall, Emory Univ., Christopher John Newfield, Univ. of California, Santa Barbara, Marilee Lindemann, Univ. of Maryland, College Park. Format: eight-minute presentations, discussion.
Also see the two offerings by the Division on Teaching as a Profession (yours truly on the executive committee): Deprofessionalized? and Governance Matters.
Deprofessionalized? Friday, 07 January. 8:30–9:45 a.m. Modern Language Association Convention 2011, Los Angeles. Plaza 3, Marriott.
Format: published discussion materials; 5-minute prepared remarks; discussion between panelists and audience.
1. A Split in the PMC? Rising Managers, Falling Professionals.Marc Bousquet, presiding. Tenure and Teaching Intensive Appointments Occupy and Escalate We Work
2. Solidarity v. Professionalism: Abetting Wayward Labor. Kim Emery, University of Florida. Deprofessionalization requires a more radical solution than re-professionalization. Academic Freedom Requires Constant Vigilance The University and the Undercommons Professionalism as the Basis
3. Precarity, Itinerancy, and Professionalism. Lisa Jeanne Fluet, Boston College. Precarious faculty professionalize themselves without many of the usual compensations. What are You Going to Do With That? The Ph.D. Problem Things I Learned From Grading AP Essays
4. What Rolls Down Hill: ‘Professionalization’ and Graduate Student Administrators. Monica F. Jacobe, Princeton University. Consequences for graduate students who provide or even donate administrative labor. Play Ph.D. Casino! Graduate Students Hearing Voices Higher Exploitation
5. Busting Faculty Labor For Fun and Profit. William Lyne, Western Washington University. Faculty work is being devalued to cut costs, increase profits and reinforce class barriers for students. Power Concedes Nothing Without Demand Public Benefits, Private Costs
6. Internal Stratifications. Jeffrey J. Williams, Carnegie Mellon Univ. As doctors farm out some tasks to nurses, practitioners and physicians’ assistants, the professoriate is shifting some tasks to sub- or tertiary professions. Remaking the University The System of Professions
7. Untitled. Bruce W. Robbins, Columbia University. Secular Vocations
Can’t make the MLA?
Join Barbara Ehrenreich, Cornel West, Dick Ohmann and many others at Left Forum 2011 (March 18-20), Pace University, N.Y.C.
Interested in joining Ohmann for a panel on working in commercialized higher ed? Drop him or Susan O’Malley a line by January 5, 2011. Have an article for Radical Teacher’s issue of the same theme? Send a proposal by May 15, 2011.
Fish Does It Again
It happens roughly once a year, usually around the holidays: Just when you’re sure that you can safely ignore everything under his byline, Stanley Fish takes notice of something worthwhile and doesn’t entirely butcher it: Carvalho and Downing’s very important but absurdly priced Academic Freedom in the Post-9/11 Era. (Yes, Virginia, full disclosure: I have a piece in it. OMG, so does Ward Churchill.) Unquestionably the must-have academic freedom book of the first decade of the millenium—ask your library to buy it.
RIP David Noble
xposted: howtheuniversityworks.com
28 Responses to Will Skype Kill the MLA?
luciuscree - January 4, 2011 at 10:45 am
Will Skype kill the MLA?
My gosh: let’s hope so.
cwinton - January 4, 2011 at 3:59 pm
Haven’t almost all other associations already scrapped convention meat markets? Sounds like the Luddites are hoping against hope to maintain the old status quo for the MLA.
lewandowski - January 4, 2011 at 4:30 pm
I have even a simpler solution. have one English or French or German professor Skype to hundreds or thousands of classrooms or homes across the country. This would save millions of dollars, create franchise professors, no sick days or such. What a beautiful world this will be!
physicsprof - January 4, 2011 at 4:45 pm
What is MLA?
tallenc - January 4, 2011 at 8:13 pm
The MLA convention has been pretty much dead for years for many of us, even those of us in English. I interviewed at MLA once a decade or so ago. Although I didn’t get the job, I learned a valuable lesson: I wouldn’t want to work at any institution that would interview candidates that way. For most of us, “MLA” refers only to a documentation system that freshmen have to learn but that no one else cares about.
dr_karin - January 5, 2011 at 9:04 am
And save the candidates the expense of traveling across the country to spend money they don’t have? Pretty good deal! We have been skype interviewing for a while in our department and the department likes it and the candidates like it. It saves everybody money, time, and energy. Maybe the conference could go back to what it is supposed to be – a forum to exchange ideas and network in your profession?
cleverclogs - January 5, 2011 at 9:21 am
I’ve never heard even *one* nice thing said about MLA – not from interviewers forced to go, certainly not from job seekers, not from reporters, not even from presenters. In fact, I know someone who left the profession after she presented at MLA because she realized that she didn’t want to spend her life among the – and I quote here – “vile, bitter, nasty people” who were in her audience there.
Some things are best done in person, including interviewing, in my opinion. I just don’t know if those things need be done in that kind of toxic environment.
wordscratcher - January 5, 2011 at 10:40 am
this year, i am fortunate enough on the job market to have had phone interviews, skype interviews, and starting tomorrow, mla interviews. having done the mla thing before, i can say without a doubt that a skype interview is an excellent replacement for sitting in someone’s hotel room, with my coat on the bed or dishes from lunch stashed in the corner, trying to coax a collegial conversation out of people who have already been trapped breathing diseased hotel air for nine hours or more.
skype not only allows the interviewers a chance to stagger their meetings with candidates, the technology allows candidates to better prepare for each interview.
i can say that i spent more time prepping for interviews and was much more able to distinguish between schools and what i wanted to say to them when my interviews were spaced over a month than i likely will be when my interviews all come within a 24 period.
wclibrary - January 5, 2011 at 11:50 am
Futurama: Skype = decapitated talking heads in jars.
11121641 - January 5, 2011 at 12:20 pm
This is GREAT news. When I was in my ABD, and then freshly minted PhD phases, I was forced to sign up and attend the MLA before ever knowing whether I would have any job interviews. Living hand-to-mouth, it was ALWAYS a struggle to come up with the $1,000 for air fare, hotel, meals, and MLA conference fee. Given that I NEVER ONCE,out of SEVERAL YEARS, got even a single interview, I have to call the MLA’s system shamelessly sadistic and abusive. Every teaching job I have EVER gotten has been ON MY OWN INITIATIVE, never with the help of the MLA. I am a formerly tenured humanities scholar, currently unemployed and without income, begging for community college adjunct gigs and about to go back to grad school to get a high school teaching credential so I CAN find work.
deliajones - January 5, 2011 at 1:38 pm
While Skype might work well for screening several candidates into finalists, I would really not recommend hiring anyone without a face-to-face meeting. My division hired three people last spring on the basis of Skype interviews only, and two of them have every appearance of being a bad fit. We would have learned so much more in a longer encounter than the two hour interview!
drjeff - January 6, 2011 at 11:50 am
In pretty much every other segment of the economy (other than higher ed), Skype or phone is used now to determine the best-seeming candidate, who then travels for a face-to-face interview at the hiring organization’s expense. They then meet with as many people there as deemed a good idea over the course of a day, and then the hiring organization decides “yes” (usually) or (sometimes) “no” on that person. Even if you get unlucky and have to bring in 3 candidates, it probably doesn’t cost more than going to MLA, and you can have several people from (or outside of) your department talk with the candidate. Plus, they can get a much better idea of what your campus and building are like, which can get you a faster decision, and fewer regrets.
If the person is on your campus for a day and meeting with a variety of folks, no-one feel the need to spend more than an hour with him/her, and everyone can have a 15-minute meeting at the end of the day, where you can make your decision on the spot. Cheaper, more efficient, and higher-quality results.
urspider - January 6, 2011 at 1:41 pm
The death of the MLA Conference? Be still, my beating heart. Cleverclogs says it well about her friend who left the profession after one MLA conference:
“I quote here – ‘vile, bitter, nasty people’ who were in her audience there.”
Only Scrooge would schedule such an important meeting right after the Christmas holidays. That should say enough.
I will never again go to that inner circle of hell, where grad students and other miserable job-seekers prostitute themselves and their intellects before the entitled tenure-stream wits with their one hundred bags of wind, those theory-headed pantaloons who helped destroy the Humanities.
Bring on Web 2.0! Unemployable Humanists of the world, unite! You have nothing to lose but your public humiliation!
mbelvadi - January 7, 2011 at 12:15 pm
As a librarian, when I see “MLA” I think of the absurd cost of the index-only research database by the same name. I know nothing about MLA’s internal financial structure, so I hope a drop in revenue from the annual conference won’t be recouped by an increase in the licensing cost of the database.
philostitute - January 27, 2011 at 11:27 am
As a philosopher I hope it’s the end of the really sadistic Eastern APA held DURING the Christmas holidays. Skype would be a godsend to these stodgy organizations who have the hubris to drag members across the country and lure desperate job seekers to spend money they don’t have begging the lucky few for a “lottery” seat to tenured security. I hope the whole game falls apart.
It is a sad, sad day when we are lamenting the loss of the highly elitist status quo in favor of something that is more affordable and humane for both the interviewers and interviewees. I would participate again if these organizations had the compassion to realize that not everyone is in the elite tenured class with unlimited travel budgets. The intellectuals show their disdain for younger members of the profession when they demand adherence to these arcane rituals. Fly out your best candidates and spend the day with them, but use Skype instead of $2000 conferences as your sorting tool in the hiring process.
willgarnett - January 31, 2011 at 10:32 pm
What’s wrong with Philadelphia? Oh, right, winter.
nacrandell - July 11, 2012 at 3:41 pm
“Tuesday night’s conference call session was also used as an opportunity to discuss options about how the trustees might protect the confidentiality of sensitive documents that the university turned over to the Freeh Group, one source said. ”
So a state organization wants to keep information confidential – wouldn’t that be a dictatorship?
willynilly - July 11, 2012 at 3:44 pm
Instead of engaging in more cover up, why don’t the Trustees just commit to full disclosure and transparency. Forget about your high priced legal-beagles who will want you to practice complete secrecy. The University needs to rebuild its image and reputition – and that won’t be achieved by trying to avoid or denying responsibility. The Catholic Church follows that practice in their sex abuse scandle and it doesn’t win them any friends. If you have to pay the piper (legally imposed damages) do so and apologize to the victims and their families. Don’t say publicly that Penn State admits to no wrongdoing. You are guilty of wrongdoing, and you know it; so pay up and apologize. In the long run you will win far more respect. Trying to avoid accepting responsibility looks sleazy to the public at large. Hiding information only digs deeper the hole in which you are currently trapped.
22058885 - July 11, 2012 at 3:45 pm
I’m sure someone will correct me if I’m wrong, but I think Penn State is exempt from Pennsylvania’s open meetings and public record laws. A truly bizzarre situation for a state institution.
drj50 - July 11, 2012 at 4:18 pm
Penn State receives some state money (a vanishing percentage of its budget) but it is not owned and operated by the state (unlike flagship universities in most states and unlike a number of other schools in Pennsylvania). So it’s not really a “state institution.”
benchgroup - July 11, 2012 at 5:06 pm
Penn State trustees are spending more time and money on CYA activities, by orders of magnitude, than they ever devoted to stopping assaults on young boys committed by a member of the staff and covered up by Saint Joe and the former (and perhaps soon to be indicted) president.
Socratease2 - July 11, 2012 at 5:19 pm
No, because the act of releasing confidential information puts other people’s privacy rights at risk and if any of the information in those emails or reports is protected by FERPA, as one example, then there are legitimate issues to be discussed on how the info is either going to be released or redacted. No need to go straight to a cover up theory.
rick1952 - July 11, 2012 at 8:22 pm
I agree wholeheartedly. This is not about Penn State per se, it is about the young victims whose needs and interests need to be placed ahead of those of the university. If the trustees want to do something appropriate and meaningful for the university, they should consider how to reign in athletics, especially football. That will do more to protect others than anything else they might do.
wepstein - July 11, 2012 at 10:40 pm
Enough awready on Penn State. Please get on to the even more dreadful corruption of higher education at other places even if it does not involve pederasty.
nacrandell - July 12, 2012 at 10:02 am
True, there is a balancing act between the FOI and Privacy Acts, however, it is not a great leap to suggest that people in power might attempt to retain that power through procedures and policies to hide information. especially after the delay into the reporting and investigation.
From the Freeh Report, page 139:
“The Athletic Department was perceived by many in the Penn State community as “an island”, where staff members lived by their own rules.”
Socratease2 - July 12, 2012 at 12:24 pm
For sure, I am not arguing these people have nothing to hide, from the recent report it seems they were concealing a lot of information and attempting to stonewall the investigation. I still don’t understand their thinking on this affair, by not bringing the situation to light back in 2001 when they could have suffered far less institutional pain and negative PR (this is of course secondary to the fact that many young boys would have been spared a horrible trauma) they have instead inherited a whirlwind of hurt and have raised the consequences to the nth degree. It is a cautionary tale to be sure, unfortunately it is a lesson people rarely learn and in crisis situations, the desire for CYA and silence often trumps ethical or professional responsibility. I would like to now award Penn State with the most ironic location name of all major universities. “Happy Valley” may need a contest to rename the area so people don’t have to choke as they say it. “Sandusky Alley” probably won’t win, I’ll need to think longer on that.
pianiste - July 12, 2012 at 6:51 pm
No, not enough already.
Why?
Because some of the biggest and otherwise best universities in the country are obsessed–in terms of money, alleged PR, and plain ol’ hedonism–with football. And with Penn State, we can see how far the top administration of the school, as well as the poor, petrified janitors, will go in ignoring felonies being committed on their campus in order to protect the football program.
Of course, not every university has a serial-rapist pedophile’s crimes to cover up in order to protect the football program. But remember: a) In Joe Paterno, Penn State had one of the putatively most honorable and ethical coaches in the game; one shudders to think what Pete Carroll or Bobby Petrino would have done, or not done, in a similar situation; and b) the things being swept under the rug at other big-time sports schools–bogus grades, bogus courses, arrested players, etc.–may not be as sensational as a pedophile’s rapes, but, especially when they’re as endemic and widespread as they probably are throughout big-time sports schools, they’re just as corrupting.
Bottom line: Big-time sports is absolutely corrupting of American higher education, and it’s a pity it takes a serial child-rapist for us to see the tip of the iceberg.
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