Mark Twain is often credited with the truism, "There are lies, there are damned lies and there are statistics."
Anytime I read a scamblog, I am reminded of it. Nando, LawProf and others have done much to show how, for example, law schools' employment and salary statistics for their graduates are manipulated, in addition to being not representational in other ways. Higher-salaried graduates who got the sort of jobs they hoped to have are usually the ones who respond to their schools' career surveys which, of course, skews the statistics upward. Another number-booster is the ways in which schools count those who are "employed" and "employed in fields related to their areas of study", or some such thing.
I was reminded of the things I've just described when I met another (!) friend I hadn't seen in some time.
She attended the school in which I took two PhD-level courses and decided I wasn't going to pursue the degree. I've tried to find the documents, but that program was reporting a well-above-average placement rate in faculty positions for those who earned the highest degree.
This friend of mine earned a PhD in English from the school in which I almost did the same. She got a full-time faculty position, all right--in Taiwan. She says the seven years she spent there proved to be an "interesting" and "educational" experience for her and her son, who was six years old at the time they moved there. She spent seven years teaching--mainly composition and conversation, but also courses she says were "related" to her studies--in a university.
She liked her students very much, she said, and the experience of living in another culture was "invaluable" for both her and her son. They both learned a new language, even if neither will claim to be fluent in it. Plus, she said, neither she nor her son has "any fear of change," as she put it.
However, the term of her contract expired and, as she is now on the same side of 40 years old as I am, her university didn't want to re-hire her. Neither did any of the other schools in which she applied for faculty postions.
So now she is back in the States, and none of the colleges (at least here in the NYC Metro area) are hiring full-time faculty. She's piecing together a living for herself and her son--who's now entering adolecence--through a combination of adjunct teaching gigs and editing work.
Her story parallels, in many ways, that of another acquaintance of mine. She earned her PhD in Comparative Literature in the same program from which the friend I've just mentioned earned her doctorate in English. She, like the friend who went to Taiwan, hoped that her experience of teaching in a foreign (Turkish) university would help her to get a tenure-track job in an American university. And, like the friend who taught in Taiwan, she has had to endure strenuous teaching loads that left her no time to do her research and writing.
Both of these women are counted among those who are not only "employed," but who are employed in their fields of study--in an academic institution--after graduating. That they had to go thousands of miles from home, and endure the attendant hardships, is of no consequence to their program's office of career services. Also inconsequential, for the purposes of that institution, is the fact that they went to teach in countries where the universities aren't primarily research- or scholarship-oriented institutions. Their situations were really little different from those in for-profit American schools, in that the schools wanted them to teach as many hours as possible for their meagre paychecks.
Yet they are expected to have impressive portfolios full of scholarly work if they want to be considered for jobs in R1 universities.
But even if they didn't get promoted from those positions in foreign universities (almost no foreigner does), they are expected to be promotable in their positions on order to remain a candidate for tenure and such.
Whatever they do--and whatever employment data these schools provide--these two women have been classified as being employed after their graduations. Then again, we all know that a woman's work is never done!
Some additional insight from someone who's been there, most of the foreign universities in Asia only require an MA/MS from foreign staff for such teaching positions. Having a PHD is a nice bonus but will not gain you tenure as the positions are most often contract-based as your friend eventually discovered. It's not a particularly good situation to be in and hard to recover from upon return to the US.
ReplyDeleteThe schools and universities are aware that the overall job market sucks ass. The "professors" can claim to be aloof, but this is nonsense. Unless they are living under a rock, they have access to student horror stories, family, friends, and the internet. We are not talking about philosophy "professors" or chemists, in the 1980s or 1950s, who are so engrossed in their research that they are socially retarded/isolated from reality.
ReplyDeleteFurthermore, the administrators of these HIGHLY PROFITABLE in$titutionS of "higher learning" are business men. They have a single vision and purpose of making money. They have often worked in private enterprise. The pigs know how to play the political game, at an expert level.
Keep exposing these bastards! Thank you for your valuable contributions to this fight.
Russ--Thank you from the insights you gleaned from your experience. I tell people that going abroad to teach can be a fun and interesting thing to do if you're young, don't have any commitments and have a sense of adventure. However, upon returning to the US, you might find yourself further behind in your quest for tenure (or whatever else you're trying to get) than you were before you left. In a way, it's much like trying to get a job in the corporate world or some new profession after going to law or graduate school and discovering how bad the job market is or that you really don't want to do what you were training to do.
ReplyDeleteNando--What I find interesting is that professors can write essays and books about all sorts of injustices in the world, such as racial prejudice, sexism and colonialism (all of which should be denounced), yet remail "disinterested" or "impartial" when it comes to realities like the job market.
Ah, the '80's": I miss the big hair, Versace outfits and theories that were even whackier than the fashions or music. I was out of education during that decade, so I missed out on all of those profs who went around quoting Derrida and Lacan, saying in essence that nothing means anything. God, how I miss those guys: I love every bone in their heads!
It really is amazing how common it is nowadays for college grads to go teach English in Asia these days. That doesn't seem like a stable profession to anchor the middle class of the world's largest economy, but these days it's about the only job you can easily get with just a college degree and no relevant work experience.
ReplyDeleteI agree, all school job statistics are being inflated in much the same way as what the law schools do. I didn't go to law school myself, but I've been struck by how many of their techniques are being widely used by all universities.
Take a look at this, for example: https://career.berkeley.edu/Major/Math.stm
A 38% response rate, with 20% of those doing "other endeavors" and at least 1 grad working at Starbucks. And these are math majors from an elite university! If they can't find good jobs, what hope is there for the rest of us? I sincerely hope that the scamblog movement can succeed not just reforming law schools, but in making people pay better attention to all educational statistics, and making people realize that having more college degrees will not magically create more jobs.
You're welcome, Dona! Yes, I had to go to Asia and eventually the Middle East to recover from my student loan debt. The next challenge was to transition back to the US which I managed to do by snagging a job with the federal government. At the time, I thought I was taking a position beneath me but am now very appreciative that I have it.
ReplyDelete"What I find interesting is that professors can write essays and books about all sorts of injustices in the world, such as racial prejudice, sexism and colonialism (all of which should be denounced), yet remain 'disinterested' or 'impartial' when it comes to realities like the job market."
ReplyDelete- Donna, you take the words right out of my mouth! If the intelligentsia can't protect their own profession, how smart are they, really? Profs are so ill-at-ease among the working class, yet the working class calls bullshit when they see it. Reminds me of this classic AFSCME parody.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3mw49mk_x0
Russ--I'm glad that things worked out for you, at least in some fashion. Still, I'm sure that you wish your road were a little bit smoother.
ReplyDelete2:00--I can't listen to most profs when they talk about "the working class." Someone, I forget who, quipped that if you talk about "the working class," you're not part of it.