MOVING TO FRONT FROM YESTERDAY--MORE COMMENTS WELCOME
A philosopher elsewhere recently wrote to me wondering about what norms there are (or should be) regarding junior faculty in tenure-stream or equivalent positions shopping around for other jobs. Of course, academia operates on something like a "free agency" system: while schools may have obligations to tenure-stream faculty regarding continued employment, faculty do not have comparable legal obligations to schools. But aside from legal obligations, faculty presumably have some at least modest obligations of loyalty to their institutions. If a school, for example, makes special accommodations for a new faculty member (e.g., in teaching load, or in support for an external fellowship, etc.), then is it bad form for that new faculty member to immediately begin shopping for a new post? But what if the new faculty member is asked by a school elsewhere to apply, is it then acceptable to apply for that post? Does it depend on the reasons a junior faculty member is shopping around: e.g., is it more acceptable when the junior faculty member is trying to solve a "two-body" problem, then if s/he is just trying to land a "better" job along some dimension. Thoughts from readers? Submit comments only once, they may take awhile to appear.
