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Faculty Jobs Fall in Foreign Languages

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By Gabriela Montell

While the number of faculty job openings in foreign languages remained steady for the past two academic years, this year there has been a slight decline, according to the Modern Language Association, and that does not bode well for job seekers.

A total of 1,367 positions appeared in the edition of the MLA's Job Information List for foreign languages in 2002-3, just two fewer than the 1,369 positions of the previous year, but well below the recent high of 1,482 in 2000-1. Unfortunately for job seekers, the tea leaves would seem to indicate that the worst is yet to come: Advertisements for foreign-language jobs in the October and December 2003 issues of the list were down more than 18 percent from a year ago. On the basis of that decline, the MLA is bracing for a 12 percent drop-off in openings this academic year.

The outlook in English isn't much brighter. According to the MLA, the total number of faculty job openings in English fell a modest 3 percent in 2002-3, but the number of positions is projected to plunge by 10 percent this academic year. (For more information on the job market in English, see a recent Careers article.)

"It looks like there will be fewer jobs by the time this academic year is out than there were the year before, not surprisingly, given the state budget cuts," says Rosemary Feal, executive director of the association, which held its annual convention last month in San Diego.

Ironically, "this comes at a time when undergraduate enrollments, particularly in foreign languages, are increasing," Ms. Feal says. In fact, since 1998, the number of students studying foreign languages has grown by 17 percent, according to a recent MLA survey. "We're just hoping that with what looks like better economic news on the horizon, and with enrollments increasing, departments will soon get the authorization to hire faculty and reverse this downturn."

In the meantime, however, there's no denying the crunch. Findings from the latest MLA survey of Ph.D. placements show that only 38 percent of the people who earned Ph.D.'s in the study of a foreign language in 2000-1 obtained tenure-track jobs that year -- and that was in a year when the number of jobs was up. Today the jobs that are available are not only fewer but also more demanding in terms of the variety of skills sought, so the odds of landing a decent academic job are even tougher.

Departments seem to be seeking applicants who can wear as many hats as possible, say Michael Shaughnessy and Christy Hyland, assistant professors in the modern-languages department at Washington and Jefferson College and co-authors of a new study of faculty openings in foreign languages.

"There's a tendency in almost every language for departments to expect candidates to be able to do everything," says Mr. Shaughnessy, who teaches German at the western Pennsylvania college. As a result, graduates with an interdisciplinary profile are likely to come out on top, he says.

In their study, Mr. Shaughnessy and Ms. Hyland, who teaches Spanish at Washington and Jefferson, found that 26 percent of the job openings advertised so far this academic year seek applicants who can teach in interdisciplinary programs. In languages other than Spanish, that figure is even higher (35 percent).

Carlos Alonso, head of the department of Romance languages at the University of Pennsylvania, says he's not surprised. Some departments are cutting corners, trying to do more with less. At the same time, to attract more students, especially those not majoring in a language, many departments are expanding their course offerings to include cross-disciplinary subjects such as cultural, film, and gender studies, as well as language classes designed for students majoring in business, law, and medicine, Mr. Alonso says.

It's no wonder that many job candidates say they feel pressure to do it all. "I think I have a lot to offer because I've been a teacher in French and I have my finger in the Renaissance and 17th- and 18th-century literature, and I have a lot of experience with technology," says Catharine Theobald, a doctoral candidate in French at the University of Colorado at Boulder. "But sometimes -- when I see ads looking for somebody who can teach 17th- and 18th-century French literature, film, and speak German -- I don't feel like I can wear enough hats."

Nina Bosch Namaste, a visiting instructor of Spanish at the University of Iowa, agrees that sometimes it seems like the job ads are asking for "superhuman" professors.

"I've seen a number of jobs that combine linguistics and literature," she says. "Who does that? You're either linguistics or literature."

Ms. Namaste declined two tenure-track job offers from liberal-arts colleges last year because she feared their heavy teaching demands would make completing her dissertation impossible. Now, with her defense only a short time away, she hopes to land a tenure-track appointment at a midsize state institution or liberal-arts college this year.

Despite this year's depressing job forecast, she's off to a fine start. Ms. Namaste had nine interviews at the MLA convention. And she's not the only one with a lot of interviews. Matthew Bentley, a Ph.D. candidate in Spanish at the University of Virginia, had 15 MLA interviews, in addition to three phone interviews before the convention, and he's already been invited to visit two campuses.

While those might seem like astounding numbers, given the job outlook, it's still typical for new doctoral graduates (and even A.B.D.'s) in Spanish to get multiple interviews and job offers their first time out.

"In Spanish, virtually everyone who seeks a university job gets one," Ms. Feal says. "I don't know of any unemployed Ph.D. in Spanish who can't find teaching work."

Outside of Spanish, it's a different story. "What for Spanish is a dip, for other languages is a crisis," says Mr. Alonso, of Penn.

In languages outside of Spanish, many Ph.D.'s spend two to three years or more chasing a tenure-track job, says Julia Simon, a professor of French and graduate adviser in the department of French and Italian at the University of California at Davis.

In French, German, and Italian, most of the job openings this year are for generalists, Mr. Shaughnessy and Ms. Hyland say. That's not news when one considers that there are many more undergraduate programs than there are graduate programs in those areas. Undergraduate programs "don't need people who can teach advanced specialized seminars; mainly, they look for people who can teach a little bit of everything," says Simona Bondavalli, a visiting assistant professor of Italian at Wake Forest University.

Within Spanish, specialists in modern Latin American literature and culture and in applied linguistics/second-language acquisition are in the highest demand. Spanish for the professions, trans-Atlantic studies, and Spanish translation are small but growing areas. Film specialists and linguists are also hot commodities across the spectrum of languages, Mr. Shaughnessy and Ms. Hyland say.

Despite the continuing financial woes of states, some departments are expanding. Candelas Gala, chairwoman of Wake Forest's department of Romance languages, says she's searching for three assistant professors in Spanish -- one in translation studies, one in business Spanish, and one in applied linguistics. Two of those positions are new lines; the third is a replacement. Ms. Gala says she also expects to hire a fourth person temporarily for a sabbatical replacement in Spanish.

Paul Dixon, head of Purdue University's department of foreign languages and literatures, says he plans to hire three people this year -- an assistant professor of contemporary Italian literature and culture, an assistant professor of Spanish (with an expertise in heritage Spanish and Caribbean-Spanish literature), and an assistant or associate professor in Portuguese and Spanish. All three positions are new lines.

But those departments seem to be in the minority this year. The departments of French and Italian at UC-Davis, Colorado-Boulder, and the University of Wisconsin at Madison aren't hiring at all this year; neither is the department of Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese at Pennsylvania State University at University Park.

Other departments that are hiring replacement faculty members, but not growing, include the German department and the Spanish and Portuguese department at Colorado-Boulder, the German department at the University of California at Irvine, the department of Slavic languages and literatures at Indiana University, the department of foreign languages at Albion College, and the modern-languages department at Washington and Jefferson College.

Still, most job seekers are taking the situation in stride. Jeff Packer, a doctoral candidate in German at the University of Cincinnati, says he feels lucky to have had two interviews at MLA this year and remains cautiously optimistic about his chances. "Of course I wish I'd had more [interviews], but it's a crapshoot. I know people who had only one interview and landed a job, and I know others who had lots of interviews and didn't even get a campus interview."

Asked when she thinks the job market might improve, Ms. Simon of UC-Davis says it doesn't take an economics degree to know that "until state economies turn around, things aren't going to be great."

"The only good news," she says, "is that things can't stay this bad forever -- right?"