Job Placement Information on Departmental Websites

Colleagues in other fields are often impressed by how much information about job placement philosophy departments now make available on their web sites.  It was not always that way, alas.  About six years ago, I used the Update Service to the PGR--which reached several thousand philosophers--to suggest that departments be more forthcoming about this information, citing some models and indicating that in future editions of the PGR I would call attention to departments that were not providing such information, since that should surely be a warning to prospective students.  Departments, for the most part, reacted constructively and did the right thing, posting information about recent job placement on the web.  (One philosopher--a Kantian moral philosopher no less--objected to my "bullying" departments that perhaps preferred to keep the information secret.   There are, I suspect, many lessons to be learned about Kantian ethics from this example, but I'll save that for another day.)

Of course, the quality of information departments provide varies quite a bit in quality, reliability and informativeness.  I have mentioned, in the past, that the Michigan site is a real model of disclosure and detail, while the Texas site, among many others, is at the opposite end of the spectrum (even though, I should add, Texas job placement has improved markedly in recent years, but the site is both relatively uninformative and not entirely accurate).  It is in this context that I wanted to share an e-mail from philosopher Miriam Solomon at Temple University:

Recently, I compiled my department's placement statistics.

In doing so, I consulted the placement statistics that other departments have posted, and found considerable variability in reporting, which may lead to misleading comparisons.

For example, some departments just list those PhD graduates who have gone on to academic jobs and leave off the ones who dropped out; some departments omit those PhD graduates who "did not seek a job" or "went on the job market with geographic restrictions"; some departments list only the first placement, which may be temporary; some departments list job offers received and others job offers accepted; one department actually counts MD/PhDs as having "tenure-track"

jobs if they have a medical residency. In my opinion, the best information comes from those departments that list all their PhDs (by dissertation title) with full employment records.

May I propose that we have some standardization in compiling statistics here? If, as we recommend, students should take placement record into account in selecting graduate programs, we should provide them with the most usable, impartial, data as we can.

So what do readers think are model placement sites?  What information should be standard?  What presentation is most conducive to informing students while respecting the legitimate privacy interests of, for example, unsuccessful job seekers?  No anonymous postings; post only once.

Comments

[Margaret Atherton]

While we are at it, could we also have a discussion of how Placement Records should appear for MA programs? We try hard at UWM to provide useful information, but would be happy to learn if there is more or a better way of making this information available. We are aware, as well, that not all MA programs provide placement information on their websites in a form easily accessible by prospective students.

[Stephen Young]

One important element that is missing from a number of placement sites is an explanation of what information is included and what is not. A great many (perhaps most) of the sites require one to guess as to whether or not the record includes those who finished PhDs and didn't go on the academic job market, were unsuccessful, etc. When I see a placement listing that only mentions graduates who found jobs, I begin to suspect that those who were not so lucky are simply omitted, which makes it difficult to assess the department's placement.

In short, even if departments couldn't agree on a standardized format or on what information to include/omit, it would be great if they could at least agree to provide an explanation of their placement records that gives readers some idea of the methodology and of what information is included/omitted.

[jon kvanvig]

Glad to see this issue being addressed, Brian, and you deserve credit for the current state of useful information. Apparently some bullying is justified...

I prefer the following information: name, dissertation title, dissertation director, year of (expected) completion, columns for tenure-track and non-tenure-track first jobs, as well as columns for current status at least until a first tenure track job is secured. Michigan's site is laudable here, though the organization scheme could be improved to make it easier to digest, but I notice it doesn't give dissertation director.

[Brian Leiter]

In reply to Professor Atherton (and I invite others to weigh in on the question of how MA programs should report their placement into): I think the Wisconsin/Milwaukee site is quite good,
http://www.uwm.edu/Dept/Philosophy/placement.html

It seems to me the main bits of information that are useful for prospective MA students are: (1) how many of those who get the MA apply to PhD programs; (2) how they fare when they apply (including questions of funding, not just admission); and (3) what areas are the successful MA students working in.

[Nathaniel Sharadin]

With respect to MA programs, something that would have been useful for me when I applied, and which I have been asked by other prospective students applying to my program (UWM), is the rate of completion for the MA. This could be done in an innocuous way (e.g., "Of the 50 students we have admitted with funding in the last 5 years, 39 have completed the Ph.D., 5 have moved on to other pursuits, and 6 are still in the process of completing the degree).

In fact, this might be a useful thing to know at Ph.D. programs as well.

[Will Braynen]

Here is one way to list jobs:

Jane Doe, entered program in 1990 (with M.A. in philosophy), PhD in 1996
"Why this is a good dissertation title." Advisor: John Rawls
1995-1997, College of Charleston (visiting)
1997-2004, Cincinnati (TT)
2004-present, Cincinnati (T)

This is a good record because it gives you an idea about how long Jane Doe spent in graduate school (don't forget to add the M.A., which usually takes two years). It also tells you that Jane had to teach while finishing up her dissertation. It tells you what Jane's first job was, not just current job, and it tells you what path she took to her current job. It also tells you when she got her first tenure-track (TT) job and when and whether she got tenured (T). And of course it tells you who her advisor was, which is not unimportant.

BUT MORE IMPORTANTLY, why don't departments list TIME TO DEGREE information? Median time to a phd in humanities nation-wise is almost a decade! (9 years according to the NSF: http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/infbrief/nsf06312/) In my program, median time to degree is 7 years and whether you have a masters coming in seems to not matter.

I really think that many undergraduates would not even apply to a phd program in philosophy if they knew how long it takes, not only how bad the market is. These stats, in very succinct form, need to appear on department "for prospectives" websites. Good markets need good information. Since many students seem to realize that a philosophy phd takes longer than they thought (many think it takes 5 years) only once they are in graduate school, then it's no wonder that the philosophy job market is out of equilibrium (i.e. the supply of phds drastically exceeds the number of tenure-track jobs; by how much?) In my personal case, I planned on being out of school by the time my mom was 65 so i could help her pay rent (we are immigrants, so my case is probably extreme) and so banked on being out of a phd program in 5 years if i worked hard. This might also be an issue for women since it throws off one's plans for having kids (if you don't want to have kids while you are working on your dissertation or living on a student stipend of 15k a year). Here is one way to briefly display time to degree information on department websites:

Median time to degree nation-wide: 9 years
Median time to degree in our program: 7 years
Median time to degree in our program if you already have a masters: 7 years
Median teaching load: 70 students if you TA, 40 students if you teach your own class.

Just a thought...
(I have more on this here: http://www.samdurak.com/phd/)
Will

[Daniel Harris]

I agree that information about the average time to degree would be very valuable. Perhaps I am mistaken about this, but the motivation for secretiveness seems to be embarrassment at the true figures in many cases, and questions posed to admissions directors and current students tend to be met with intentionally vague answers.

Standardized transparency about this issue could have many positive effects. The only exception I can think of is the following. I have heard of programs in which the students felt as though they were being rushed to completion, such that they did not feel prepared for the job market. Presumably, standardizing information about degree-length would increase the motivation of departments to rush students in this manner.

Still, I think the net effect would be positive.

[D Jagannathan]

While we're dreaming about the information that departments should give out, I should note that raw time-to-completion information doesn't seem to be terribly useful when comparing departments. Students come in with different preparation, after all. It would be more useful to find out average time to various milestones, like finishing the MA/finishing coursework, qualifying exams/papers if applicable, prospectus defense, and dissertation defense.

As a prospective graduate student, I'm at a loss as to how to reasonably compare programs on completion measures, since slowdowns at different stages seem to signal rather different things about departments, and the burdens in some cases clearly fall more on the student than the department or the adviser. I suppose informal surveys of current graduate students at institutions in which one is interested would be effective on a case-by-case basis, but as in the case of placement records, departments not only have readier access to the information, they also seem to have a responsibility to their students, current and prospective, to make such information available.

[Sandy Goldberg]

Like the others, I applaud the efforts at full transparency and standardization; it is only fair to those who are trying to make decisions between grad schools, to give them as much useful information as we can regarding our placement records.

The one question I have is how to standardize cases of students who, for one reason or another, do not get a job (or drop out of the profession). It seems to me that there is a world of difference between a PhD who never even applies for jobs (and we all have known a few of these), those who apply but only in a limited way, and those who apply but are never successful. In addition, there are time differences as well: candidate A might apply for two years, get discouraged by failing to land a TT job, and then leave the profession (for law school?) whereas candidate B might hang on in 1-year jobs for 7 years etc. And these may not be the only relevant divisions within the category of "not in the academy at present". If it would help prospectives to disaggregate this category, how should it be done?

[Cynthia Freeland]

Is it legal to list students' information while including their names, such as some people have mentioned above on websites? I would have thought this violated FERPA rules.

[Brian Leiter]

In response to Professor Freeland: I do not believe FERBA covers job placement, just a student's 'educational record' while a student. I am happy to stand corrected by someone more informed on this subject.

[Rob Rupert]

Minor addendum to Will's post: Information about time to completion can also help men who are planning families, since they will, most likely, be providing at least half the child care, etc.; and they might not want to do this while writing a dissertation or living on a 15K student stipend.

[Tim Schroeder]

I'd like to second most of Will Braynen's proposal. For privacy reasons I think it would be better to not use students' names. And for statistical heuristic purposes, I think it would be good for prospectives to see information organized by intake year. (This also affords a clear way to indicate who has left the profession.)

E.g.

1990
6 students admitted.
2 left the program without completing PhDs.
1 not employed in philosophy after completing a PhD.
3 students employed in philosophy

(a) PhD in 1996; "Why this is a good dissertation title." Advisor: John Rawls
1995-1997, College of Charleston (visiting)
1997-2004, Cincinnati (TT)
2004-present, Cincinnati (T)

(b) PhD in 1997; "Another fine dissertation." Advisor: Barbara Herman.
1997-present, UC Santa Cruz (first TT, now T)

(c) PhD in 1999; "Finally finished." Advisor: Jerry Fodor.
2001, South-West Missouri State University (3-year)
2002-present, Pittsburgh (TT)

Some above have suggested that more details be provided about the travails of those not now employed in philosophy (e.g., whether someone went two years with term positions before quitting). I incline toward thinking that privacy for those who have left philosophy outweighs the informational benefits here. A Braynen-style system of information already takes some privacy from those entering a PhD program, and we should probably not take more from those who are most likely to be most unhappy with their outcomes.

One last thought: if this forum comes to have something like a large majority of agreement in favour of some proposal, we should actively try to spread the word, and go from there to widespread implementation. One incentive to be less than fully honest in providing placement information is that other programs are also less than fully honest, to their likely advantage in recruitment. This is a game-theoretic situation familiar enough that we have some idea of how to deal with it!

[Richard Zach]

@Cynthia Freeland: Not sure about FERPA, but release of student information in Canada is governed by the Freedom of Information and Privacy Act. In my University's privacy policy, it says, e.g., "It is not considered to be an unreasonable invasion of a student’s privacy to release the following information to a Third Party:dates of registration at the University of Calgary; faculty(ies) of registration at the University of Calgary; degree(s)/diploma(s) awarded from the University of Calgary; convocation dates" and for employees "employment status; job title; rank; ..." So it seems that listing students (with names), when they graduated, dissertation title and supervisor, and where they took a job, is legal to put on the website. (We do that, plus the external examiner, who usually provides a letter of reference, and if the student had any major awards such as SSHRC Doctoral Fellowships.)

It does strike me that the name of the supervisor is an important bit of information.

@Rob Rupert: "[men] will, most likely, be providing at least half the child care". You're joking, right?

[Sam]

@Tim Schroeder: "I incline toward thinking that privacy for those who have left philosophy outweighs the informational benefits here. A Braynen-style system of information already takes some privacy from those entering a PhD program, and we should probably not take more from those who are most likely to be most unhappy with their outcomes."

This will probably be addressed by someone more eloquent and clear, but I'll at least add my opinion:

While I understand your concern for those who want to wipe their hands clean of academia, I think it is incredibly important to still this provide the information to potential students. Maybe names can be omitted (which keeps their name safer from a simple Google search, at least), but the (more important) information still needs to be provided. If 10 students enroll, 6 graduate, and only 2 seek academic jobs (the other 4 are no longer interested), then this is quite different from 10 students enrolling, 6 graduating, and only 2 acquiring jobs when all 6 were interested in staying in academia.

Of course, there are going to be varying levels of interest in pursuing an academic job which will potentially make things messier (e.g. geographic restrictions, "I'll take a job at a research school, but not a teaching school" (or vice versa), they needed a higher paying job than academia provides), so it might be best to have more of a case-by-case explanation of what happened to that particular student who left academia. This also gives a look of what happens to the Ph.D.s who head out into the "real world" and not just the path of the academics.

[J.C.]

Regarding FERPA--Brian is correct, it only applies to academic records (there has recently been a good deal of discussion of this in the wake of the Virginia Tech shootings; see for example http://connect.educause.edu/Library/Abstract/FERPAAllowsMoreThanYouMay/44888).

The idea of withholding names from placement info has always struck me as odd, because 1) it is not clear to me why including the name is much of a violation of privacy and 2) in the case of people who are successfully placed, one can easily use the other information given to find out the person's name. (On the other hand, I can see not wanting to add insult to injury by naming people who aren't successful...)

Another fairly obvious point, but one worth noting--departments need to update the placement info every year. It seems like many departments have trouble keeping their websites up to date in general, and I have noticed a few that have really complete placement info for some years, but seem to have given up or forgotten...

[Alastair Norcross]

In response to Richard Zach's assumption that Rob is joking about men providing half the child care, I am Cartesianly certain that Rob is not joking. It could, of course, be that Rob has simply been around more admirable male grad students with children (including his own former self) than has Richard. My own recent experience with grad students who are also fathers is in line with Rob's. Are male grad students at Rice and Colorado simply better people than those at Calgary?
Alastair

[Rob Rupert]

To Richard Zach:

Yes, that was a joking 'most likely' but with serious normative connotations. Joking (and exaggerated statistical claims) aside, more than a few men out there are egalitarian-minded, or have working wives (that 15K doesn't go very far!), or find positive value in raising their own kids, or have older wives and might be concerned for health-related reasons about waiting until tenure to begin pregnancies, and so on. Thus, it would be useful to many male grad students (or potential grad students) to know completion times and the like. If, for example, students in a given program typically take ten years to complete the dissertation, and that's common knowledge, perhaps a man with a working wife will seriously consider the strategy of writing a dissertation bit by bit, while the kids are napping or are at soccer practice or whatever. Or maybe if a male knows that the typical student in his prospective program takes two one-year jobs before getting a TT job, he (and partner) will adjust the timing of births so that the kids are not yet in school at the likely time of repeated moves (thinking, perhaps, that certain kinds of continuity are more important at school age than they are before that). Details aside, my main point is that I don't see any reason to limit the scope of Will Braynen's comment about family planning to women.

[Rob Wilson]

More applauding for the general effort at greater professional transparency here, and a couple of points that pick up on some of the earlier comments and draw on some experience from my time as a grad student at Cornell in the '80s (oh the '80s ... I'm getting misty-eyed at its very mention).

I agree with Daniel Harris about embarrassment and with Tim Schroeder about self-interest being major motivational brakes on being even moderately transparent on this front. This is especially so in the websphere, where the main job of the graduate section of a departmental website is to attract graduate students. Dumping people into the realities of the situation here are unlikely to do that, and face the kind of familiar problems of unilateral action that Tim is pointing to. Moreover, it's almost impossible to under-estimate how dismal things have been for over 30 years in "the profession", and in graduate schools more generally.

Smooth anecdotal segue: as part of a campus-wide effort to organize a grad student union at Cornell in the late '80s, one of our first efforts was to survey grad students to get an idea of The Situation, as well as priorities. One thing that we found was that grads worked on average ~24 hours per week (well above the 15-20 mandated by the university); another was that completion rates across the humanities were ~50%; and another was that average time to completion was around 7 years. The figures for philosophy were comparable, though better on the teaching front. (Stephen Young is right to have more than suspicions about departments that report only grads who have jobs.) The points here are two: that the ugly reality of study in philosophy is not unique, and that universities more generally are likely to be duplicitous at best in telling prospective grads what the facts on the ground as like: expect a lot of spin, no matter what the formal norms for reporting are.

Here's one thing that might help here that goes beyond standardizing the form of the information provided: a standard statement that departments are strongly encouraged to include (by the APA? by the Leiter Thought Police?) at the beginning of whatever placement record they report. Working towards some standard reporting format is a good idea, and such a statement, if standardized and semi-mandated, would do a lot to take the heat off of individual departments and discourage the Eyes Wide Shut approach to grad school that both the profession and those seek it out have settled for. What I have in mind would be a bit like the standard anti-plagiarism statements that most universities have and insist (in some way or other) that profs use in their course outlines. The relevant background information is freely available in scattered formats, and I have very occasionally seen it placed (in an appendix ...) in graduate handbooks. The kinds of stats that you can find at http://www.apa.udel.edu/apa/profession/data.html are relevant but not quite appropriate. I'm thinking of a strong, qualitative, honest statement about the realities of grad life and beyond, not a statistical report. There are, no doubt, a few of these already around, and maybe someone can point us to a few.

In lieu of that, I leave it to Alistair Norcross to deliver an initial parody of the kind of generic statement that the profession might accept for public consumption on this front. :>)

[Alastair Norcross]

OK Rob, how about this for a standardized statement about the realities of grad life and beyond?

If your old college roommate shows you a first paycheck,
Whose multiple figures put your nose out of joint,
Yet you smile politely, preserving your friendship,
Though most figures on yours follow the decimal point;

If you can sit through a commercial for Old Milwaukee’s piss,
The only “beer” your stipend will afford,
Endure the tag-line, “It doesn’t get any better than this”,
And yet not immediately fall on your sword;

If you can read yet another student offering,
Whose opening lines serve the following fare:
“Since the Dawn of Time Man has debated human cloning”,
Yet not wake up your roommate with howls of despair;

If your big celebration at the end of semester
Is at Spaghetti Warehouse, where the sauce tastes like mud,
Yet you actually like it, the injustice doesn’t fester
That that fancy Olive Garden is too rich for your blood;

If your supervisor says your fifth draft needs revising,
Or no tenure track job will be coming your way,
And you take it with patience, though your gorge is fast rising,
At the prospect of year eight at derisory pay;

If you can teach critical thinking to sixty-five students,
And Intro to Ethics to sixty-five more,
But not dream of fatal fraternity accidents,
That leave half your classes drowning in gore;

If your fourth one-year job has your worldly goods sent,
From East A & M to South Inbreeding State,
But you keep writing papers and barely resent,
Your old tenured colleagues whose work is third-rate;

If you regard each unforgiving minute,
As a chance by reason to be beguiled,
Then yours is the library, and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a grad student, my child!

Alastair

[mark lance]

It seems to me that nothing is gained for prospective students by knowing the name of those who didn't finish or didn't get a job. So why include that. The names of those who did are already public info. So just include XXX for those who didn't finish in the very informative examples at the top of this discussion.

I also think it is important to distinguish those who put geographical restrictions on their search. At Georgetown, the only people finishing the program in the last ten years who did not get permanent jobs -- tenure track, or permanent research positions)-- were a couple folks who, for personal reasons, decided they had to stay in one particular city. There is nothing wrong with such a decision, but it is obviously one that makes your chance of getting a job vastly lower, and through no fault of the program or the placement efforts of the department. We are happy to tell any student coming in that if they pick one city they have to live in, we will do what we can, but doubt they will get a permanent job. Beyond that, the relevant information for typical students is the percentages who get jobs after broad searches.