I always suggest that job applicants look carefully at the faculty roster of the department to which their application will be directed and think about how one’s doctoral alma mater matches up with the department members. If the roster includes a preponderance of flagship and top-tier institutions and your doctorate is from a more regional institution, the odds are against your selection. Likewise, if the roster is dominated by graduates of institutions in the same region as your alma mater, again, the odds are against you.
I wanted to invert this a bit to the search-committee side of things. I have worked with many search committees that make the same sort of consideration, at least tacitly: If they are dominated by more regional or second-tier institutions, they may be unlikely to attract or even select a candidate with a more prestigious pedigree, regardless of the luxury of options the current job market has been providing. I once heard a department chair say, in fact, that he would never hire another graduate of a prestigious program because they “all” are spoiled and hard to develop; he wanted more regional folks in the department. I had a sense, though, that the comments may have had more to do with the department than with the past applicants to the department.
Have you ever noticed this sort of alma-mater “clustering” enter into the deliberations of a search committee?
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18 Responses to The Geography of Academic Hiring
frankschmidt - February 7, 2011 at 3:37 pm
It may not be an effect of the search committee as on the candidate pool. Many candidates who have lived exclusively on the Coasts won’t apply to a Midwestern institution, for example.
frankmhowell - February 7, 2011 at 3:39 pm
Gene,
This pattern is routine in the social sciences, judging from the outcomes of searches. However, I have also observed the opposite occurring! From serving on search committees at three “regional” universities, I have witnessed fellow faculty members following the “prestige trail”. Even if regional (peer institutions) candidates’ credentials were superior, the more prestigious candidates skipped ahead in the moderate to short lists. I found it a clear false consciousness cutting the job chances of our own PhDs if “we” wouldn’t give our peer institutions’ best graduates a fair shake. Just my observations….
pchoffer - February 7, 2011 at 3:56 pm
Folks: seen from the other end, that is, in terms of who hires our PhDs, we see a distinct geographic pattern. Indeed, it seems to be a bias. Our PhD program in American history, particularly the history of the American South and Civil Rights, is as fine as anyone else’s in this country (in my opinion of course). So is our faculty, offerings, and training in early American history. We only turn out three or four PhD’s a year (the program only has about 65 students), but every one of them lands a job. My point is that, with only one or two exceptions over the past ten years, every one of those jobs is in the South or the Southwest. Our students may or may not prefer jobs in the region or find them more comfortable, but the word that comes back to us from their employers is that our students seem to fit in the program better than others with more prestigious degrees. Our students certainly perform well in those jobs. They get tenure. They write and publish with major university presses. But we–that is, our grad program–cannot seem to break through the barrier of non-regional offers. All best, Peter
shushufindi - February 7, 2011 at 4:33 pm
In anthropology the pattern has been for elite doctoral programs to hire the graduates of similar elite programs. I also believe there is a north/south bias as very few graduates of southern schools are hired by northern doctoral programs. I think state universities (flagship or regional) are, on average, more willing to give serious consideration to all candidates based on their individual merits and promise.
westcoastgirl - February 7, 2011 at 4:43 pm
I’ve always heard that A plus people tend to hire other A plus/solid A people. But I’ve heard that A- people and downward tend to hire B+ and down. I am one of two shortlisted at a regional school where most people are pedigreed from the California public system. Do you think reverse elitism may figure into the decision process? I’m from Stanford. I hope not. why would they shortlist me, correct? I’m really hoping to land this job. thoughts?
lpettit - February 7, 2011 at 5:06 pm
The variation can be as great among departments within a given university. As a retired president who always strove to improve faculty quality, I found that mediocre departments usually wish to perpetuate mediocrity; they are threatened by more professionally qualified and involved colleagues. The last of my 4 chancellorship/presidencies was at an institution with a regional image, but which, because it confers doctoral degrees, was classified as “national” by US News. There, I could rely on the good departments to recruit the best they could get from the leading graduate departments in their disciplines. But I had to prod the lesser departments not to hire all their colleagues from a particular (very good) research university 50 miles away, or, not to hire retired military or local high school teachers when they could get doctoral students from Harvard or Stanford. Then there was the faculty union president, who opposed hiring outstanding young faculty, and assured me they would all leave after a few years anyway. In eleven years, one such outstanding young faculty member did leave, for the University of Chicago.
22228715 - February 7, 2011 at 5:18 pm
Yes, I’ve seen both the phenomenon of only looking seriously at graduates of (perceived) top-tier institutions, and also some of the phenomenon of assuming that this top-tier-alum won’t stay long before jumping ship from our not-so-top-tier institution. Either way, several of the more senior members of the community seemed to sort CVs by graduating institution first, and then individual factors later.
losemygrip - February 7, 2011 at 5:58 pm
Regionalism is the dirty little secret of academic hiring. To be honest, California is the worst. It’s very difficult to break in there if you haven’t gotten a degree from another California institution, at least in my field (except maybe Berkeley and Stanford, who lean towards Ivies).
It’s also funny that people don’t consider Ivy League incest to be a form of regionalism. It is.
By the same token, I refuse to give into this attitude that applicants from certain schools are “too good for us,” or “they won’t stay here.” Offering the job to the best candidate is #1 priority–second-guessing is a waste of energy.
maxkingcap - February 8, 2011 at 2:13 am
We all, even myself I must confess, prefer the reflection we see in the mirror. Consequently, we frequently hire those similar to ourselves. Avoiding this tendency during a search is an important aspect of creating a vibrant faculty. I have seen this idea taken too far (insisting that no one from our own city be considered even though two MacArthur fellows were interested) but on the whole I hope the interaction between academics should involve debate, disagreement, and compromise. Replicating retiring faculty is a poor method of building a solid educational institution.
Max
11901736 - February 8, 2011 at 6:57 am
One can hire both excellent and diversely prepared candidates. If a good graduate school wants its faculty to have a variety of perspectives and backgrounds, a modest baccalaureate institution might as well do the same, and for the same reasons. In a small program with a dozen or fewer faculty, everyone can (and I think generally, should) have a doctorate from a different place, at least when the job market or micro-market in the field being searched allows the luxury of choosing among many equally highly-qualified candidates (and assuming the discipline being searched is not a smaller one with only a couple-three acknowledged leading doctoral programs to hire from). Apart from demonstrating rigorous and fair searching of external candidates, this provides the students the broadest range of advisors, with the widest set of perspectives and networks that can help with their own graduate school applications.
englishwlu - February 8, 2011 at 8:02 am
Change is possible. Diversifying the doctoral degrees–beyond Princeton, Yale, Harvard–went along with a generational turnover that enabled younger faculty (now middle-aged) who had been selected in degree-replication mode by the retiring crowd to break the pattern and hire more women and the department’s first minority faculty. Along the way, we added degrees from flagship state universities in the midwest and on the West Coast (we are in the rural South) and previously unrepresented Ivies. The hardest barrier for our candidates to break is the “no experience of a small liberal arts college ever” obstacle. I was lucky to have grown up the child of a SLAC faculty member, in a small college town, so I could mitigate my “all Ivy” pedigree with claims to understand what small college teaching was all about. My hiring perpetuated the old pattern except for my gender; my age-mates and I have broken that pattern. Step one: make sure every job application is read by at least two people!
12039333 - February 8, 2011 at 12:15 pm
I wouldn’t be surprised if someone were able to prove an anti-Southern bias in the Northeast. My degree is from a flagship Southern university, but I’ve never been able to return to my native Northeast. Even the smaller teaching institutions, comparable to the one where I’m working now, would rather have someone with a degree from U.Mass. than from U.Ga.
henr1055 - February 8, 2011 at 3:43 pm
I am Chair of a search committee right now. We are a small school and we have a set of qualifications that our candidates must meet. Since scholarship is a requirement a person from a well funded Flagship school will probably come with more graduate type publications, abstracts and co author of publications with preceptors. At our regional institutions in Texas they are all Wannabees but their grad students still work 30 hours a week teaching labs so when would they have a chance to get involved in their own research. Never because they are slaves. Regardless we are interested in potential fit with our university and beable to achieve the well outlined faculty duties and responsibilities including teaching, service, scholarship and professional development. Students here are not an inconvenience and are our greatest assett the the future of our country. Anyone coming here resenting students taking their time will not make a good academic fit. If they are a former slave there is a good chance they will resent the students taking their time and it will be Hasta Lavista
TH
henr1055 - February 8, 2011 at 3:53 pm
If we are to be diverse and that is currently a goal in higher education I suggest that Ethnic Identity, Sex and Gender, Age, ability and disability, appearance, religious beliefs, sexual orientation, social class from Cunningham, R. “Diversity in Sport Organizations” Since our isntitutions are ranked people from the higher ranks can become involved in Cognitive Distancing, Interpersonal Distancing, and Institutional Distancing. If we think Harvard and Yale produce the truely illuminated faculty they make reconsider their judgement in the light of Bush 43 and using his office to settle a family vendetta, or the number of people from these places that smoke a pack a day. Plenty of graduates of these places are no better than anyone else with the same degree.
ynori - February 9, 2011 at 11:08 am
On my UC campus, there is a clear bias toward PhDs from the Ivies and other UCs. Having said this, what I’ve noticed after serving on a handful of searches (in the humanities) is that the quality of the candidate’s undergraduate institution tends say more about the candidate than her/his graduate school over the long run. Has anyone else noticed this pattern?
raymond_j_ritchie - February 10, 2011 at 1:25 am
PhDs from Europe and Australasia should read this article very carefully. It shows how insufferably provincial americans really are.
I know you will get all sorts of furious denials but applying for real jobs in American universities is a complete waste of time. It is all a pretend game. There is no serious intent to consider you.
Why can’t they simply be honest and tell you to go jump in the lake like the Canadians do?
They are quite happy to have you as indentured labour as PhD students and post-docs but give you a real job? Who do you think you are!
rahna - February 10, 2011 at 1:25 pm
I’m not naive enough to think that this pattern doesn’t exist, but it is still difficult to face its affirmation in print given how bleak the job market is (which is a topic for many other discussions). I’m a Ph.D. Candidate at a State University, and I study under some brilliant, established, respected academics. I have worked through and earned degrees at both State and top-tier universities, but it seems the fact that I will soon graduate from a Southern, State Ph.D. program will keep hiring committees from even considering my application at all. The depressing part of this is that in 5 short years I taught 6 classes a year (in a variety of lower and upper division courses), earned a certificate in another department, served on multiple committees, earned an endowment to archive a special collection at the library, earned a best graduate student and teacher award, became a fellow, presented, and published, while at the same time having a child with my partner who was also going through a Ph.D. program. Moreover, my partner and I both chose this Southern, State university because we wanted to study under particular professors, who themselves choose to be at this school. I am what a professor is supposed to be, but none of that seems to matter given what I’ve read here. My partner and I are both on the job market, and I hope…I almost plead…that hiring committees reconsider their usual patterns and look for superior academics rather than “superior” institutions.
librarystudent - February 10, 2011 at 11:29 pm
Wow. What an interesting world you all operate in.