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[fiona]

Not sure if this is the best forum to place this, and if not, please put it elsewhere.

This article says that contingent (adjunct) faculty pretty much NEVER get t-t jobs.

http://chronicle.com/jobs/news/2007/03/2007032701c/careers.html

I've thought about it a lot, and I think our own rattusdomesticus is the only person I know who's gone from adjuncting to a t-t.

That's very scary news, but it should be better-known.

The Fiona

[abuflletcher]

Scary news indeed.  Even for a male.  This is perhaps of a piece with the fact that Ph.D.s apparently come with a "hire by" expiration date.  Adjunct for a couple of years and you've become a long shot.

[expatinuk]

I don't find it scary at all... to me it continues to point out the fact that we women are demanding equal opportunities in the work place yet we do NOT demand equal functioning at home. Why do men have an easier time getting tenure? Because they are not doing 50% of the home and care giver duties. Sure, they may be doing more than they did in the past but it's not 50%.

Who read the report last week (I think it was last week) that we now spend MORE hours per week with our children than stay at home mothers did in the 50s and 60s.

Women obsess over the fact that need to do it all..... we can't do it all...

[jon_margerumleys]

This article says that contingent (adjunct) faculty pretty much NEVER get t-t jobs.

http://chronicle.com/jobs/news/2007/03/2007032701c/careers.html

I've thought about it a lot, and I think our own rattusdomesticus is the only person I know who's gone from adjuncting to a t-t.

Add me to the list.  Went from adjuncting to t-t position at my current institution.  So that's two.  :)  But for the most part, it doesn't happen.

Jon

[tenured_cat]

If I remember all the sage advice in the Chronicle and the Forum correctly, any non-tenure-track position (part-time, adjunct, or full-time non-tt) seems to be a dead-end because:
a) universities prefer to hire "fresh meat," meaning a new PhD; a recent thread put the expiration date for a PhD at after 1999
b) there seems to be agreement that universities tend to hire from the outside; some non-tts may luck out, but, the longer you have been around, the less the chance that somebody else will pick you up - so why should a department hire you appropriately if they already got you?
c) from conversations with colleagues I gather that many think adjuncts are all professionals who just teach a class or two for fun; no use telling them otherwise - why throw out a good stereotype for real data?

Point a and b both apply to me (not c, because I'm full-time non-tt); I had to stay for much longer than was good for me for personal reasons, but am now on the market. Have a few nibbles, but so far no offer ...

What really annoys the h... out of me is that the hiring decisions are made by the full-time tt-faculty who so smugly decide that they need us to teach classes, claim that teaching is important to the university, but then underpay, undervalue, and over-work us because only publications count in the real world of hiring, tenure, and promotion.

[dr_crankypants]

I don't find it scary at all... to me it continues to point out the fact that we women are demanding equal opportunities in the work place yet we do NOT demand equal functioning at home. Why do men have an easier time getting tenure? Because they are not doing 50% of the home and care giver duties. Sure, they may be doing more than they did in the past but it's not 50%.

I guess I find that scary in itself.  But I think it's also true that when a couple decides to have children, a woman is getting pregnant and giving birth.  No equal chore-splitting changes the fact that a woman's career takes a much bigger hit from the physical effects of pregnancy, labor, and recovery.  Men would need to contribute much more than 50% to restore equality of time loss in a relationship.  I don't think the problem is necessarily with women's expectations.  I think the problem has a lot to do with the workplace expectations that treat motherhood as an obstacle to academic success.

On the tenure-track issue, I think I do know a few people who went from adjuncting to tenure-track positions, but I think what those people all had in common that a) they either got out of it very quickly, b) they were in relatively protected adjuncting positions (say, adjuncting at a spouse's institution, or at their alma mater), which limited the adjuncting taint--or c) they got a fellowship (or all three).  But I'd agree that the vast majority of tenure-track people in the research universities I'm most familiar with did not have a long detour on their way to these jobs.  It is sobering to think about it that way.

[aardvark]

What really annoys the h... out of me is that the hiring decisions are made by the full-time tt-faculty who so smugly decide that they need us to teach classes, claim that teaching is important to the university, but then underpay, undervalue, and over-work us because only publications count in the real world of hiring, tenure, and promotion.

Amen!  The truth is, IMHO, most dept chairs have a double standard:  they'll let someone teach as an adjunct (or, in some cases, even as a VAP) that they don't think is up to snuff for tenure track purposes.

(Of course, the pool of applicants for tenure track is not as deep or as good as the pool for adjuncting, in most cases-- I think).

Another little double standard:  I realize the humanity of having a "terminal" year after tenure denial, but what kind of message does it communicate to current students when you say, in effect, "In our wisdom we've deemed that this prof isn't good enough to keep around... but he'll do for YOU people this year!"

[dr_dre]

The line I heard from both my grad advisor and Ms. Mentor at a conference session on the job market was that humanities Ph.D.s are generally good for about three initial turns on the market. After that point, if we don't have a TT position, we were encouraged to pursue other career paths. It was definitely sobering to hear.

[larryc]

I had trouble getting beyond the first sentence of the article: "Drew Gilpin Faust's appointment as president of Harvard University has seriously dented the academic glass ceiling."  Glass does not become dented, it breaks.

[larryc]

OK, I read the article and the only thing I find about adjuncts and the tenure track is this sentence: "Indeed, in seminars on balancing work and family life that I have given at dozens of major universities, including Harvard, I have never met a contingent faculty member who moved onto the tenure track, although I am certain a few must exist somewhere."  Which is hardly a piece of sound statistical data.

[threadkiller]

Barbara Weinstein, president of the American Historical Association had a great article in a recent article of Perspectives (the AHA journal) regarding the challenges of mobility as well.  Women, even TT women, often don't have the luxury of travelling often as often to libraries and archives, nor can they uproot their families multiple times in order to chase "better" jobs.

In all fairness, I think many men are affected by this as well, particularly those who have partners who work and who have small children.  But it seems to affect women more often.

[expatinuk]

In all fairness, I think many men are affected by this as well, particularly those who have partners who work and who have small children.  But it seems to affect women more often.

My point... why does this affect women more? Can it be genetic? I don't think so. Why do women do this? I'm not bashing women (I am one).

[voxprincipalis]

I've thought about it a lot, and I think our own rattusdomesticus is the only person I know who's gone from adjuncting to a t-t.

Add me to the list.  Went from adjuncting to t-t position at my current institution.  So that's two.  :)  But for the most part, it doesn't happen.

I am #3. I went from adjunct to TT at my first job at a CC. But I was only there as an adjunct for 1 year, so I don't think I was pigeonholed in the way I suspect many long-time adjuncts are.

VP

[zharkov]

???

I went from adjuncting to TT, albeit at different schools.  My chair began as an adjunct here, became a full timer, and later chair.  I can think of at least a couple of others at my old school, although I by no means quiz TT faculty about ever adjuncting.  Maybe a poll is in order......

[prytania3]

I teach at a cc, and we have a tendency to hire quite a few of our adjuncts. We tend to have a very strong adjunct pool. Of course, even though we do hire internally a lot, the majority of our adjuncts don't get jobs.