Several philosophers have called to my attention the ACLS "New Faculty Fellows" program, well-described by one correspondent as follows:
ACLS has a program designed to provide short-term jobs (at little or no cost to the hiring institutions) for deserving young scholars during this period of very bad academic employment prospects. They are putting forward 53 candidates, the idea being that they will all get hired (for one or two years) by universities participating in this scheme, and these universities are now being invited to look at the candidates' materials and see if they are interested. Unfortunately, not a single one of these candidates has a Ph.D. from a philosophy department.
That's right, not one of the 53 is a PhD in philosophy, though in fact many philosophy PhDs were nominated. There are 14 from History, 10 from English, 4 each from Comparative Literature, Classics, and Anthropology, and 3 from Art History, among other fields. 0 from Philosophy. Perhaps the problem is related to that well-described by David Velleman (NYU) with regard to the Newcombe Fellowships, where philosophers have generally done pretty well. Even so, it seems incredible, and evidence of substantial hostility on the part of the selection committee, that not a single philosophy PhD should have been chosen. I would hope that the three Presidents of the divisions of the APA are sending a letter of complaint to the ACLS.
Those with insight into what happened here are invited to post comments; students who applied may also post, and may do so anonymously (though please use a real e-mail address, that will not appear).
