Monday, January 24, 2011

The plural of paltry is not "far from stagnant"

From the January 24 issue of Chemical and Engineering News, a sidebar from an article on liberal arts teaching positions:
Chemists Wanted
The job market for liberal arts faculty positions is far from stagnant. For example, Simmons College is in the midst of a faculty search for a physical or biophysical chemist with strengths in instrumentation. Claremont McKenna College is currently seeking a biochemist, a molecular biologist, and a climate scientist. An organic chemist is retiring from Haverford College, which will most likely mean a job opening in the coming year. The chemistry department at Bowdoin College is seeking approval to hire two new physical organic chemists in 2011. And the chemistry department at Drew University recently advertised a two-year position for a visiting professor in organic chemistry.
I find this paragraph a little irritating, but I can't quite put my finger on it. I think it's the context-less statement that the job market for liberal arts faculty positions is "far from stagnant" -- what does that even mean? In that there's a fair number of positions, sure, that might be a reasonable position. In the practical sense that the average chemist could potentially attain one of these positions, that's most certainly not the case. The competition for teaching jobs is too fierce for words. I can't quite tell what the writer is trying to say, but I'm pretty sure that I disagree with them.

The comment on the Haverford College retirement is (in my arrogant opinion) naive at best; there's no telling what the faculty and administration will do. The Bowdoin College position hasn't appeared yet -- no ads. (Right? Wait, let me check... nope! It's not on their faculty hiring page.) The position at Drew is on the Wheel of Pain -- I'm not sure we want to count that.

Nice try, folks. Sorry to burst your bubble.

9 comments:

  1. Hey, one more thing. A molecular biologist? Not a chemist. A climate scientist? Not really necessarily (but could be) a chemist.

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  2. That sidebar is a little like digging the knife deeper. I can't tell if it is by the editors or the original article's author. But it does sound like "here's five maybe job openings for all two thousand of you that graduated with PhDs last year. now quit yer bellyachin'!"

    from the main article: "“If you want my job, you should do a postdoc at a large research university in a group with a high profile,” says Casey H. Lon­der­gan, an assistant professor of chemistry at Haverford College, in Pennsylvania."

    Gee, do we ever get any other advice? I like how they emphasize the personal interaction with students and emphasis on teaching which is not at all provided by the large university top group system.

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  3. Ohandbytheway you need to publish a lot. So you'd better pick a project that isn't going to fail. And, make sure that the famous PI that you work for sees to it that they have the time/inclination to properly plug you for open positions. Ohandbytheway, then you need to publish some more.

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  4. Oh, and if possible, while you're writing those ten papers and working 14-hour days, could you try to secure some independent funding?

    Also, it would really help us if you were able to construct, teach, and grade your own class before we consider you...

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  5. Hey CJ,

    Sorry to jump in late here, but I just wanted to point out that although "far from stagnant" may not have been the best choice of words, I noticed that the article proper is very clear that competition is fierce for these jobs. But I think the point is that jobs do exist now. Which was not the case not so long ago when universities of all sizes were under hiring freezes due to the economy.

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  6. Rachel, that's a fair point about the article proper.

    That being said, your one to two sentences here says a lot more and is better reasoned than that sidebar (which, to be put charitably, is a couple of job openings combined with some hoped-for job openings.)

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  7. Duly noted. And I've passed your critique along to the editors.

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  8. I didn't have a problem with the article itself, but my take home message is that the 'top' students are finding themselves unable to get their pharma jobs, and so are going to squeeze out everyone who isn't top group/top school out of the liberal arts college arena, which was presumably a go-to for students who weren't as interested in the publish or perish, dog-eat-dog world in the first place.

    "Thought you could just do some teaching and get by without endless grant writing in today's academic world? Not so fast!"

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  9. Many moons ago, I wrote a little post about that squeezing phenomenon, bw. I titled it, "No Matter Who You Are, You're Screwed."

    http://chemjobber.blogspot.com/2009/02/broken-pipeline-or-no-matter-who-you.html

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looks like Blogger doesn't work with anonymous comments from Chrome browsers at the moment - works in Microsoft Edge, or from Chrome with a Blogger account - sorry! CJ 3/21/20