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Why Buy the Cow?

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By Doug Risner

You may find the perfect job, and you may be more than right for it, but if that job is at the same institution where you earned your Ph.D., you're better off looking elsewhere. Even if you've been working as an instructor on the campus, the romance of graduate school often ends quite abruptly when you pursue a long-term commitment -- i.e., a tenure-track job -- from your institution.

I suppose I should have known that. After all, I was a tenured professor at another institution for more than a decade before I went back to graduate school to earn my Ph.D. I had always known of the curse that surrounds recent Ph.D.'s who long to stay on at the institution they've come to revere as a graduate student. "It won't happen. It's a rare case. You have to be extra special." I had heard these words before.

But somehow, given the quality of my experience and credentials, plus the fact that I had been a well-respected teacher, a published scholar, and a servant to the university community, I thought I had what it took to overcome the bias that many institutions have against hiring their own.

I have held some sort of part-time position in the dance department -- as lecturer, teaching assistant, or guest artist -- since 1998 when I began my doctoral study in educational leadership and cultural studies at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Because my teaching experience in dance is extensive, I have often filled in for full-time faculty members and taught required courses for the major as well as general survey courses. Growing student numbers have outpaced faculty hires in certain courses, and I've taught those too. In other words, I frequently fill in the cracks.

I first became aware of a tenure-track opening for an assistant professor in the dance department when the search committee chairwoman urged me to apply. Having previously supervised an independent study of mine, I felt she knew me well enough to not only discern my qualifications, but also to assess my suitability for the position. Still, knowing of the institutional taboo, I believed that even the brief amount of time spent on applying would be a futile waste of energy -- time that could be better spent on completing my dissertation.

As the application deadline approached, I began to reconsider. Could it be that I was using the unspoken policy to shield myself from a negative response I might feel from faculty members that I have admired and respected for many years? Was my reluctance to throw my hat in the ring tied to the belief that maintaining valuable professional relationships was more important than opening myself up to their potential rejection? Could I handle not being offered the job?

It wasn't as if this had never come up before. After all, two tenured professors in the department (out of nine full-time faculty members) had earned terminal degrees from this university. Maybe it wasn't so unthinkable that a 2001 Ph.D. could make it over this hurdle.

Many of my colleagues in the department assumed that I had applied for the opening. Upon hearing that I had not, they strongly encouraged me to. Some of the undergraduate students in my classes were equally miffed and wondered why I didn't want the job. Explaining this situation to undergraduates is a difficult task, but as I tried to describe the circumstances in simple language I realized that denying my strong interest in the job, as well as my deep affinity for the program, was insincere, if not just plain silly.

In actuality, I did want to be considered for the position, and given the fact that I have historically filled in important curricular cracks, what more evidence did I need that I could balance the strengths of the current faculty?

So I applied, all the while knowing that even making the shortlist would be an incredible feat. I carefully edited my cover letter to reflect my intimate understanding of the departmental goings-on and candidly highlighted what I would bring to the position.

It wasn't long before complications arose as a result of my close proximity to the process. For example, the application required four letters of reference. Three of my five references kept on file at the university career center were from faculty members who happened to be members of the search committee. One reference asked that I remove her letter because she felt that it would prove prejudicial when she argued her support for me in search-committee deliberations.

My other references felt, because of their familiarity with my doctoral work, teaching, and research, that letters from committee members posed no real problem for the search. However, at the search chairwoman's suggestion, I requested a letter from my previous dean and department chairman to comment on my 10-year tenure at a previous college, something most other applicants would not have had the opportunity to do.

A bigger complication was that the committee was concurrently engaged in a search for a new department head, and that took priority. As a result, it seemed that the search for the junior position continued endlessly. Other positions for which I had applied and been invited for campus interviews had come and gone. I knew that I was still under consideration, or at least that my application had made the first cut of initial candidates.

But when it came down to the shortlist, my application apparently lost its glow. I later found out that the committee was reluctant to give serious consideration to one of its own graduates.

Sometimes faculty members have great difficulty seeing Ph.D. candidates as potential colleagues, an attitude that frequently emerges from the ways in which departments are organized and governed. Graduate teaching assistants, although often responsible for teaching large portions of undergraduate course offerings, are rarely included in faculty meetings as fellow colleagues. Even with doctorate in hand, institutional bias develops a "once a student, always a student" paradox for recent graduates.

Part of the problem is that the rule that prevents departments from hiring their own Ph.D.'s is both unwritten and often unspoken. As a result, it is interpreted differently from department to department.

During the past few weeks, faculty members have approached me in consoling ways, offering the department's respect, admiration, and affinity for me. Each has indicated various slants on the frustrating nature of my credentials, and the ways in which these terminal degrees characterize my circumstance. In hindsight, and with great respect for this department and its faculty, I realize that having two tenured graduates of the institution on the faculty was not a reason for me to be optimistic, but rather, in all likelihood, greatly reduced my possibility of being offered the tenure-track position.

What's most ironic about all this is that although I lost out on the tenure-track job, the department has once again offered me a "fill in the cracks" adjunct position of five courses for the fall semester.

Why buy the cow, when you can get the milk from an otherwise jobless, part-time adjunct?