Nice Work, If You Can Find It

According to a recent New York Times article, full-time professors are a dying breed:

In 1960, 75 percent of college instructors were full-time tenured or tenure-track professors; today only 27 percent are. The rest are graduate students or adjunct and contingent faculty — instructors employed on a per-course or yearly contract basis, usually without benefits and earning a third or less of what their tenured colleagues make. 

I am Jack’s total lack of surprise (that’s a Fight Club reference, for those in the know). And thanks to the recession, a humanities doctoral grad probably has a better shot of winning American Idol than of landing a tenure-track job. (Doubters need look no further than the abysmal job numbers recently released by the Modern Language Association and the American Historical Association.) Yet historian was in fifth place on CareerCast.com’s new rankings of 200 jobs, as published this week in The Wall Street Journal. Biologist (No. 4) did even better, and other academic positions — mathematician, at No. 6, and philosopher, at No. 11 — also ranked high on the list. Lumberjack, last year’s worst-ranked job, moved up a notch to No. 199, leaving roustabout in last place.