Leiter Reports: A Philosophy Blog

A reality check on the Oseroff scandal and the APA Blog (UPDATED)

Given that the Twitter Red Guard continue to dissemble and moan about Professor Stock's and my expose of the APA blog scandal, perhaps a reality check is in order.

Nathan Oseroff, a man in his late 20s, who has a prominent on-line position with the American Philosophical Association (that he continuously advertises), took it upon himself to launch a jihad against feminist philosophers, especially philosopher Kathleen Stock (Sussex) who held what he, in his superior wisdom, deemed to be a "morally unacceptable" opinion about the proposed gender self-ID law in the United Kingdom (this law would permit anyone to redesignate their gender for all legal purposes without any medical or other oversight, evaluation or waiting periods).  This man used his role at the APA blog to post a comment attacking Prof. Stock on the APA's blog that violated blog guidelines (the editor in charge of the blog apologized to Prof. Stock, removed the comment and briefly suspended the offender--remarkably, he has not been removed entirely). 

This adult male also took to social media to defame Prof. Stock as someone who directed "hate" at her students and colleagues.  Doing so would be grossly unprofessional conduct, but this man's only evidence for his libelous charge was that Prof. Stock had a different view about the gender self-ID Law in the UK than he did.   In addition, it turns out that this man also abused his role at the APA to "police" the conference practices of a philosophy society that had actually accepted one of his papers, even though the APA, let alone its blog or its editors, has no authority about how professional societies referee papers.

This adult man, who is almost 30 years old, objected that no one should criticize him since he is a PhD student in philosophy. Some of his fellow Twitteratti, endorsed this view (unsurprisingly, they are all similarly situated:  adults in school engaged in stupid on-line conduct!).  

I suggest that Donald Trump should enroll in a PhD program soon, since some segment of the population apparently believes that misconduct is entitled to a free pass if the perpetrator is an adult PhD student.  (Unfortunately for Trump, that segment may consist only of the Twitter Red Guard.)

More than half of U.S. law schools look at social media presence of applicants...

...which sometimes leads to rejection.  I suspect both hiring departments and admissions committees in philosophy will start doing this more systematically in the years ahead--yet another reason why students, and especially graduate students seeking jobs, should have either no Internet presence or a wholly professional one (i.e., no ranting about politics, abusive tirades about faculty or fellow students, narcissistic displays [e.g., going on about one's mental health, one's sex life, one's private affairs] etc.).

Job Candidate Mentoring for Women in Philosophy

Philosopher Amanda Greene (UCL) asked me to share the following:

The Job Candidate Mentoring Program for Women in Philosophy (https://jobmentoringforwomen.wordpress.com/) is recruiting both mentors and mentees for the upcoming job market season. Mentors should currently hold a permanent academic post and have had job market experience at the junior level in the past seven years. The application deadline for mentees is Sept 8th. Preference will be given to job candidates who have not participated in this mentoring program before. Other job candidates seeking mentorship are encouraged to participate in the Cocoon Mentoring Project.

Do young philosophers *really* need to be on social media for professional reasons?

The answer I would have thought is obviously 'no,' but philosopher Rebecca Kukla (Georgetown) takes a different view.  She writes:

I will focus on the role of social media for graduate students and untenured faculty in philosophy. I think there’s no doubt that staying off of social media altogether can actively harm your career, while using it wisely can actively help you, and can genuinely enrich your professional and intellectual life. A huge number of professional opportunities show up first and most prominently on Facebook, both as formal announcements and through informal discussions. A great deal of philosophical conversation that shapes the debates in our field happens on social media. Co-authorships and collaborations often take root online. People get to know one another’s personalities and research through these media. it clearly helps in getting interviews and invitations if people already know who you are, and like you and think highly of your ideas. I have certainly learned about the work of graduate students and young scholars through social media, and then offered them invitations and opportunities, used and assigned their work, and sought out their company at conferences as a result.

This may, indeed, have been her experience in some of her fields, and so to that extent, it's worth noting for those with similar interests.  But in philosophy of law, or post-Kantian Continental philosophy, none of this is true:  I've never seen "philosophical conversation" on Facebook or similar social media platforms having any affect on the actual debates, which arise from actual scholarly work presented in the traditional fora and formats.   I'm not aware of anyone in these fields who got an invitation based on Facebook presence either.   So I wonder:  how widespread a phenomenon is the kind Prof. Kukla describes?  I'm skeptical based on my corner of philosophy and social media.

Deciding between graduate school in philosophy and law school

A recent philosophy graduate gave me permission to share his questions, which might be of interest to others:

I am currently deciding between graduate school in philosophy (I graduated in honors philosophy from [school name omitted] in 2015) and law school. In the long run I am considering whether to pursue philosophical or legal academia. I have benefitted greatly from your advice to prospective philosophy graduate students and prospective law school students with philosophical interests on Leiter Reports. Since I have a couple of questions that as far as I can see have not been directly discussed in a Leiter Report blog post I thought I would email them to you in case you have the time to answer them.

1. My primary area of philosophical interest is political philosophy. In the spirit of your post on the difference between the study of political philosophy in political science and philosophy departments, I am wondering about the difference between working in political philosophy in a law school or in a philosophy department. What would you say are the most significant differences that someone considering both options should take into account?

2. a. If one were to plan on obtaining a philosophy PhD and a JD separately in order to pursue legal academia, is there a significant difference academically in doing one of them first? For instance, would there be a significant impact on one's study of the subjects themselves? on job market chances?

b. If there is, is one course of study preferable? In other words, is it more beneficial to come to the study of law with significant training in relevant philosophical areas (political, moral, epistemology), or to come to the study of philosophy with philosophical questions arising from one’s study of law?

Here are my answers:

1.  At many good law schools (see this section of the PGR), there are serious opportunities to study political philosophy, but even at the best law schools, given that most of your studies will not be philosophy-related, you can't get adequate training to do professional work.  At best, you can acquire competence with themes, authors, and arguments, but you won't emerge as a political philosopher with a JD only.

2a.  I've known students who have done it in both directions, and had good success at it.  PhD programs seem, in recent years, to be keen to admit those with a good JD record, but those who come to the JD with a PhD in philosophy already have a set of intellectual and disciplinary skills that can help them thrive and do quite well in law school.

2b.  I don't think there's a one approach fits all answer to this question.  But I'm opening comments for thoughts from other readers.

 

 

Blast from the past: What is an 'area of competence'?

Back in 2007.  Opening comments here, in case readers think anything has changed in the interim.

Where tenure-stream faculty at the U.S. top 20 (2017-18) got their PhDs

This is where all tenure-stream faculty (junior and senior) at the PGR top 20 programs for 2017-18 earned their PhDs.  Remember that Harvard and Princeton were the top departments in the country from the mid-1950s through the 1980s (Harvard for much longer than that before, though Harvard declined more than Princeton in the 1990s); in the 1990s, first Rutgers, then NYU emerged as dominant programs.  MIT's PhD program began in the early 1960s, and was a top ten program from the start (early faculty included Hilary Putnam and John Rawls); Pittsburgh emerged as a philosophy powerhouse in the early 1960s as well.  Michigan had a top ten, often top five, PhD program from the 1950s onwards.  UCLA emerged in the 1950s (first with Hans Reichenbach, then Rudolf Carnap, Richard Montague and others) as a major PhD program, while Berkeley became a more prominent player in the field in the 1960s.  Yale went from top ten status in the 1950s, through many years of conflict and decline, before reemerging in the 1990s as a major PhD program.   Cornell was one of the top ten programs from the 1950s until the early 1990s.  Columbia, like Yale, had ups and downs, sometimes in the top ten, sometimes not even in the top twenty.  Chicago was a solidly top ten program during the time Donald Davidson was on the faculty (1976-1981), and a top 15-20 program most of the rest of the time.  Stanford has been a top ten program since the 1960s, with Patrick Suppes and a young Donald Davidson, among others.

Programs are ranked by the total number of graduates in tenure-stream positions in the current U.S. top twenty, though I also note the number of those faculty who are untenured but on tenure-track; in ten years time, Rutgers and NYU will be giving Harvard and Oxford a run for the money (probably Berkeley too).

1.  Princeton University (55 total, 7 currently junior)

2.  Harvard University (43 total, 4 currently junior)

3.  Massachussetts Institute of Technology (31 total, 5 currently junior)

4.  Oxford University (24 total, 3 currently junior)

4.  University of California, Berkeley (24 total, 7 currently junior)

Tenure-track jobs by area advertised in 2017-18

Marcus Arvan (Tampa) has put together his annual analysis of the areas in which jobs were advertised this hiring year; particularly striking is the distribution of AOS for the 228 tenure-track jobs that were advertised:

Breakdown by AOS - Tenure-Track Jobs Only (228 jobs)

• Aesthetics: 1 job (.04%)
• Continental: 9.2 jobs (4%)
• Core: 28.8 jobs (12.6%)
• History/Traditions: 36.2 jobs (15.9%)
• Open AOS: 40.5 jobs (17.8%) – many at small schools (~60%)
• Religion: 5.25 jobs (2.3%)
• Social identity (race, gender, etc.): 11.7 jobs (5.1%)
• Science: 14.8 jobs (6.5%)
• Value theory (ethics, political): 79.2 jobs (34.7%)

A few observations of my own.  As noted earlier, this was indeed a good year for Continental job seekers.  And the early signs that the "core" is dying do seem borne out by these statistics:  how "core" are areas that account for only 12.6% of all jobs advertised?  On the other hand, some parts of the so-called "core" (language, mind, metaphysics, epistemology) spill over into parts of philosophy of religion, philosophy of race, philosophy of gender and, sometimes, value theory, so perhaps the statistics aren't as bleak as they look--and some of the "open" jobs will, of course, go to those working in "core" areas.  That 5.1% of the jobs had an AOS for philosophy of race and gender is stunning (that's more than for Continental or philosophy of religion, let alone aesthetics), though one suspects some of these may really be "hidden criteria" searches.  Value theory continues to have the most job ads, but probably also the most job seekers.

Comments from readers on this data welcome.

Forecasting an increase in demand for "elite" colleges and a significant decline otherwise

This bodes ill for many institutions (and thus for the academic job market), and will  surely intensify competition for perceived "eliteness."

PhilSkills

A reminder about this interesting site featuring interviews with philosophers with careers outside academia.

Athena Networking and Mentoring Workshop for Graduate Student Women in philosophy...

...is now accepting applications for the 2018 workshop.

(Thanks to Liz Harman for the pointer.)

Journals that publish the best-quality articles on figures in the post-Kantian Continental traditions of philosophy

So with more than 160 votes in our poll from last week, here's the top ten:

1. European Journal of Philosophy  (Condorcet winner: wins contests with all other choices)

2. Journal of the History of Philosophy  loses to European Journal of Philosophy by 80–37

3. Philosophy & Phenomenological Research  loses to European Journal of Philosophy by 75–40, loses to Journal of the History of Philosophy by 64–45

4. British Journal for the History of Philosophy  loses to European Journal of Philosophy by 91–26, loses to Philosophy & Phenomenological Research by 57–48

5. Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie  loses to European Journal of Philosophy by 87–26, loses to British Journal for the History of Philosophy by 52–44

6. Philosophical Review  loses to European Journal of Philosophy by 92–21, loses to Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie by 61–32

7. Inquiry  loses to European Journal of Philosophy by 100–10, loses to Philosophical Review by 44–41

8. History of Philosophy Quarterly  loses to European Journal of Philosophy by 101–14, loses to Inquiry by 46–44

9. Review of Metaphysics  loses to European Journal of Philosophy by 92–24, loses to History of Philosophy Quarterly by 46–44

10. Philosopher's Imprint  loses to European Journal of Philosophy by 95–12, loses to Review of Metaphysics by 46–43

Note the tight clustering (in terms of vote differentials) outside the "top five."   EJP probably should come out on top, though I will say there's been a decline in the quality of the Nietzsche papers they've published in recent years.    I probably should have included Journal of the American Philosophical Association, since it has published papers on Continental figures, but it's also still quite a new journal.  (The quality at JAPA has also been uneven, it seems to me, but it's still early days.)

Several of these journals publish Continental articles quite infrequently (e.g., Phil Review, PPR), though it is true that when they do publish such articles, they tend to be of good quality.

On-line job portals that will not accept letters from Interfolio?

A reader writes:

In the comments below one of your recent posts, Daniel Kaufman (and others) shared eye-opening reports that some online portals don't accept letters from Interfolio, even though to applicants they appear to. Many universities use customized versions of the same few portals. So if, e.g., MSU (Daniel Kaufman's employer) doesn't accept Interfolio letters, presumably Interfolio won't work with any university (e.g., U of Utah) whose portal is a version of that same PeopleAdmin platform.

Would it be possible, as a service to all of us on the market (and to committees who want to hire the best candidates!) to post a thread on this? Such a thread could ask people who've served on search committees to comment with their university (or its portal system platform, if they know it) and whether it accepts Interfolio.

Comments are open.

Placement in PhD-granting programs in the new academic job placement report

MOVING TO FRONT FROM OCTOBER 3

I've started to look a bit more at the data from the new placement analysis (commissioned and paid for by the APA no less), and there were plainly some peculiar choices made in how to frame the data.  As David Chalmers points out, post-docs are lumped in with fixed term appointments, adjuncting, and VAPs, i.e., as simply "not permanent appointments."  That's extraordinary, given that some who take them postpone tenure-track jobs to do so, and many use them to launch into highly competitive tenure-track positions.  Even more curious was the decision to create a "placement ranking" based on "permanent placement" without regard to school quality.  Three of the schools in this "top ten" for permament placement--University of Virginia, University of Florida, and University of Tennessee--also have 0% of their graduates placed into PhD-granting programs.  (I'll have more to say about their permanent placements, below.)  By contrast, taking the report's data at face value (I can not represent that this is safe to do, but let's assume it is), here's how a ranking of U.S. programs by placement of graduates into PhD-granting programs (i.e., research universities and departments) would look (for schools with  at least 20% placement into PhD programs):

1.  University of California, Berkeley (59%)                               

2.  University of Pittsburgh (HPS) (43%)                                    

3.  Rutgers University, New Brunswick (36%)          

3.  Princeton University (36%)

5.  Massachussetts Institute of Technology (35%)

6.  Carnegie-Mellon University (33%)

7.  Harvard University (31%)

7.  New York University (31%)                                                          

7.  University of California, Irvine (Logic & Philosophy of Science) (31%)

10. University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill (26%)

11. University of Pennsylvania (25%)

12. University of Chicago (24%)

12. Yale University (24%)

14. Columbia University (23%)

15. Stanford University (21%)

15. University of Arizona (21%)

17. University of Michigan, Ann Arbor (20%)

17. University of Southern California (20%)

Of course, this list looks a lot more like the PGR, especially when you factor in the specialty rankings which capture the niches of excellence at places like Irvine's LPS and Carnegie-Mellon. 

Still more complaints about on-line application systems and job ads

Another job seeker writes:

I wanted to share with you -- and if you think it is worth positing, with your blog readers -- an annoyance about some recent job postings that require application through an online system. There was a similar complaint recently about having applications and letters, which must be separately uploaded by referees, due on the same day (Oct. 9). I fully agree with this. Not all letter writers are available at all times, and it is unrealistic to ask candidates to be sure that letter writers will be available at the relevant times. And not all letter writers want to use services like interfolio. I would like to point out in addition, that there is often a discrepancy between the advertisement and the actual online application about what documents are required and that there is often no mention of when letters are required. Thus, the advertisement might say that a CV, research statement, and evidence of teaching effectiveness is required, as well as the contact information of letter writers. But once logged into the application system, and only once personal information has been entered and saved, it turns out that, say, a statement on teaching is also required, or in my case, transcripts. While the advertisement stated that contact information for referees was needed, one referee wrote to me that day saying he hoped he had met the deadline -- I had no idea that there was a deadline for letters, or that it was on the same day. There was no mention of a deadline in the advertisement or during the online application process. A colleague applying for a job in the UK in a different field found out -- again, once the online application was well underway -- that she should paste into a box an explanation of how she meets the criteria announced, though there was no mention of these in the advertisement. In my case, not having applied for jobs in recent years, I had to dig up a transcript, whereas my colleague had to put together a new document -- something like the cover letter used for other positions. Another kind of case might be one in which only the online application system lists a research statement as optional in additon to a dissertation summary. This means, I take it, that the research statement need not summarize the dissertation.

My beef is not with the fact that certain documents are required rather than others; these are reasonable demands and especially in philosophy, they are relatively standardized. And, apart from the worry that my letters will not be accepted, these were relatively minor annoyances, since both of us have done this before. But it does take some time, and I imagine that it would take more time for someone who is new to this, who is perhaps more concerned to proofread everythign several times, and perhaps especially for foreigners, who might want to ensure that their writing is fully idiomatic, etc. And a minor annoyance could turn into a more major one on a day full of teaching or other responsibilities. So, my plea to philosophy departments is to make sure that their advertisements accurately reflect (i) the documents that will be required and those that are optional in the online application process, and (ii) the deadlines not only for an application but, if applicable, for the receipt of letters of recommendation. It should not be that hard to do so.

Huemer's polemic against letters of recommendation

David Boonin (Colorado) kindly calls to my attention his colleague Michael Huemer's case against soliciting letters of recommendation.  Prof. Huemer is always pleasingly contrarian, though it seems to me his case is stronger in this instance when it comes to letters of recommendation for senior candidates rather than rookies.  With regard to rookies (1) no appointments committee has time to review in detail the submitted work of all applicants; (2) pedigree (the applicant was trained at a program with which one has had good experiences) is both under- and over-inclusive for narrowing the applicant pool down; (3) the same goes for publications; and (4) letters can be quite helpful, as long as one knows how to read them.  If one does appointments enough, one gets better at deciphering the codes in which they are written, and you learn who is reliable and who isn't (in the late 1980s and 1990s, Hilary Putnam wrote one too many time in letters of recommendation that "now I know what it was like to have Wittgenstein in class" that it became a joke in the profession--none of those young philosophers, to the best of my recollection, turned out to be major figures in philosophy). 

More worries about on-line application systems

A graduate student writes:

Since you posted recently on letters of recommendation and online portals, maybe you would be interested in giving some airtime to another supremely vexing issue in this regard: a number of proprietary application portals prevent applicants from generating the emails with upload links before submission, and instead only send referees links for uploading letters of recommendation after the applicant has fully submitted the application. However, they maintain (or at least espouse to) the same deadline for letters of reference as for the application itself. (Some applications state explicitly that upload links go dead at the deadline.) The result is that an applicant who submits the application on the day of the deadline has given his or her referees something like a 12-hour window to upload their letters. 

I struggle to understand why one would design an application portal in such a way; the response that students should take care to submit well before the deadline to ensure that their referees have time seems to defeat the very purpose of having a single deadline for applications and referees. (And indeed, the Harper-Schmidt postdoc at UChicago only generates upload links for referees after submission, but the deadline for referee submission is 2 weeks past the deadline for application submission.) Similarly, the claim that it would reduce incomplete or partial submissions (by not collecting letters until complete applications had been submitted, thus avoiding letters for incomplete applications) is vitiated by making applications incomplete on the other side of the equation-- they now have complete materials but incomplete letters! The single conceivable benefit I can think of is that letter-writers can be certain that they are only writing for someone who has submitted a full application -- but is that really an acceptable gain for knowing that either the applicant or the writer will be harried by the process? 

 Are there reasons for this that I'm missing? Is there any justification? It just seems like an unnecessary, added inconvenience for all involved in an already stressful process. 

This year's amazing job market for post-Kantian Continental philosophy: the new hot area?

I confess I've never seen anything like it in 25+ years of watching these things.  There are jobs expressing serious interest in post-Kantian Continental philosophy at Berkeley, Notre Dame, Rice, Boston College, Harvard, Durham, William & Mary, Haverford, among other places!  The old "core analytic" is dying, but the much-neglected post-Kantian Continental seems to be enjoying a new "market demand."

Perhaps Anglophone departments have figured out that (1) post-Kantian Continental philosophy is a magnet for enrollments, given how interesting and influential across disciplines figures like Marx and Nietzsche and Foucault are, and (2) the quality of the candidates teaching in this area is now as high as in any other specialty?

One big advantage of having turned over the PGR burden to others is that I can now speak much more freely about what I think about trends in academic philosophy.   My prediction is that the most successful departments going forward will be those that offer serious coverage of post-Kantian philosophers on the European Continent.

Bias and neglect of non-Western philosophy in Anglphone departments is very real, but hardly surprising, given the remoteness of language and culture; much more surprising has always been the neglect of European philosophy of the last two centuries:  translations of these figures are widely available; the ideas of the great 19th-century thinkers in particular permeate the entire curriculum in Western universities; and, perhaps most importantly, there are now a large number of serious young scholars--in terms of basic scholarly discipline and philosophical competence--working on these issues.  For a long time, there was clearly an issue about finding young philosophers interested in the post-Kantian traditions who were not muddleheads.  That time is now past.   The best young scholars working on the post-Kantian Continental traditions are as good as the best scholars of early modern or ancient philosophy, not to mention the latest expert on the metaphysics of grounding!

The idea that any good department, whether at the PhD level or the undergraduate level, would not have a specialist in the rich European traditions post-Kant will soon, I am hopeful, become a relic of the past.  

ADDENDUM:  When I talk about post-Kantian Continental philosophy, I mean the German Idealists (Fichte, Schelling, Hegel), Kierkegaard, Schopenhauer, Marx, Nietzsche, Husserl, Heidegger, Horkheimer, Adorno, Merleau-Ponty, Sartre, Foucault--I do not mean charlatans like Zizek or the latest silliness out of Paris.  It's the former figures who now regularly attract excellent and philosophically informed scholarship, and it is these figures that the recent job ads are targetting.

Jobs limiting applicants to just three letters

Philosopher Barbara Herman (UCLA) writes:

As Placement Director, I'm seeing an issue that's of general interest.  A number of schools, either because of the structure of Interfolio or their own online application systems, are only accepting three letters of reference for job applicants.  They are giving no guidance about whether they are expecting the applicant to include a teaching letter, or want only research letters.  Some of these schools respond to inquiries about this state of affairs with surprise and then say they will accept more letters by email.  Some others in effect shrug.  Very active or well-connected placement directors are able to get more attention for their students.  That's good, but hardly fair.  Since you reach a great many programs through your blog, I wondered if it might be of use to call attention to this so that schools might work towards being more uniform or at least more informative about their practice.

I'm grateful to Prof. Herman for raising this problem.  Comments are open for suggestions or for hiring departments to clarify their policies, as the case may be.

Academic job placement report

Here it is.  I've not had a chance to examine it, though the lead author on the report has an uneven track record and I had heard complaints from others that the placement data was incomplete, but it may be that has been rectified in the final version.  In any case, comments are open for those who have had a chance to examine the report to weigh in with the positives and negatives, what's interesting and useful, what's less interesting or dubious, etc.

The growing mismatch between jobs for philosophers and what the leading PhD programs emphasize, or, the so-called "core" is dying

PhilJobs is starting to fill up with ads, though not as many ads as one would like to see (at least not yet).  But what is striking is the pattern in areas of interest:  lots of value theory and history of philosophy (esp. early modern, but also a fair bit of 19th-century), some currently "trendy" areas like philosophy of race and gender, but very little "core analytic" (as the Stanford ad puts it), i.e., very little philosophy of language and mind, metaphyscis & epistemology, the latter being the historical "prestige" trackers in the profession for the last half-century.  But as I've remarked before, what is prestigious and central at the top PhD programs may no longer bear much relationship to most of the jobs that exist.  That seems increasingly true (we've seen other signs of it).

Far too many PhD programs currently operate on what we might call "the MIT model":   little or no history of philosophy or post-Kantian Continental philosophy, certainly no non-Western philosophy, but lots and lots of "core analytic" (sometimes with some philosophy of science thrown in), plus a bit of value theory, though mostly to the extent it is close to the former areas.  The MIT model served MIT well when Robert Stalnaker was active and training tons of students, and before Stephen Yablo was, tragically, taken ill (though Yablo is still teaching happily).   Perhaps the MIT model can survive as a viable model for graduation education, and might do so if MIT were the only purveyor--but the University of Southern California, despite being a much larger faculty, has adopted the MIT Model with a vengeance, and Rutgers has largely migrated in that direction.  Other "MIT model" programs--wholly or heading in that direction--include Michigan, Texas, U Mass/Amherst, Rochester, UC Davis, UC Santa Barbara, among others. 

A close, but preferable (at least by my lights) relative, is the "Princeton Model," where the investment is heaviest in "core analytic," but there is also a substantial commitment to history of philosophy and sometimes even post-Kantian Continental.  NYU followed the Princeton Model, more successfully than Princeton, which no doubt explains its dominant position in Anglophone philosophy.  "Princeton Model" departments include Pittsburgh, Yale, Berkeley, UCLA, Harvard, Brown, and Cornell, among many others.

Free letter delivery service for the job market

Philosopher David Faraci writes:

Graham Leach-Krouse and I are pleased to announce that MARGY, our free letter delivery service, is up and running for the 2017 job market season. Applicants are invited to use our system to send confidential letters of recommendation to schools that are accepting submissions via email. For more information, people can go to https://margymail.com or email admin@margymail.com.

The Differing "Codes" in Which Letters of Reference are Written

MOVING TO FRONT, SINCE IT'S LETTER-WRITING SEASON (originally published January 10 2010, and moved to front periodically since)

A young philosopher writes:

We all know how important letters of reference are and how much weight they have in the decision who to interview at the APA or at least for making the first cut. There were comments in an earlier thread on this blog that seem to suggest that at some point of the decision process this is the most important factor and many of my colleagues share this view.  

 

The problem is the following: not every letter writer seems to be playing the same game. And I am not referring to the notorious US/UK difference in this respect. Some professors are very explicit about giving comparative statements about their student, e.g., “she is among the best three students I have ever had” and then if this professor does not make such a statement in the case of another student, it is to be assumed that this student is not so great. But there are professors who do not follow the same rules in their letters: they just never make comparative statements. And this is true of some excellent philosophers from some excellent departments. So how are we supposed to assess these letters? Are we, letter readers, supposed to know the idiosyncratic habits of all letter writers?

Some of these issues were discussed in the Chronicle almost a decade ago, in what is still a timely article, and we also addressed them back in 2003; as I noted then:

Part of the problem with these letters--besides their uniform inflation and hyperbole--is that the code is hard to interpret. For example, letters will frequently conclude with one of the following recommendations:

I recommend X warmly/highly.

I generally assume that this is a weaker recommendation than:

I give X my highest recommendation.

But maybe not: it could depend on the writer?

And how does "highest recommendation" compare to:

I recommend X without reservation.

The same? Stronger? Does it depend on the author again?

And how does the warmly/highly recommendation compare with,

I recommend X with enthusiasm.

And does one writer who says the latter necessarily mean to convey less enthusiasm than a different writer who says,

I recommend X with great enthusiasm

I'm not always sure. Nor am I always sure whether "warmly" means the same as "highly" or whether "warmly" is really code for "not enthusiastically," and so on.

I have chatted with others, here and elsewhere, about this subject, and if there is a consensus among readers of such letters it is this: what is most meaningful in a letter of recommendation are explicit comparisons with other graduates of the program or other philosophers working in the same area. All the "warmlys," "highlys" etc. just don't help. Philosophers ought to drop them, and say, "X is the best student since Y and Z that we've had" or "X's work is comparable to the work of A and B," where A and B are employed philosophers working in that area. Such comparisons are slightly distasteful, and there's no guarantee that Y and Z, or A and B, won't see the comparisons; but there's no question they are MUCH MORE informative than the code words.

Thoughts from readers on these issues?  Signed comments preferred, as usual; submit the comment only once, it may take awhile to appear.

Why prospective grad students need to know about academic hierarchies, part 211

This study did not include philosophy, but I'm sure the pattern in philosophy is the same:

The data revealed that just a quarter of all universities account for 71 to 86 percent of all tenure-track faculty in the U.S. and Canada in these three fields. Just 18 elite universities produce half of all computer science professors, 16 schools produce half of all business professors, and eight schools account for half of all history professors.

While elite universities, with their deep resources and demanding coursework, surely produce great professors, the data suggest that faculty hiring isn’t a simple meritocracy. The top schools generate far more professors than even just slightly less prestigious schools. For example, in history, the top 10 schools produce three times as many future professors as those ranked 11 through 20.

Where untenured tenure-track faculty at the "top 20" U.S. PhD programs got their PhD 2017-18 edition (UPDATED AND CORRECTED)

MOVING TO FRONT AGAIN--REVISED AGAIN

The following universities have the most PhD graduates in "top 20" philosophy programs for 2017-18 ("top 20" is construed loosely to include some on the cusp given the last PGR).  For some schools PhD graduates of cognate programs (like HPS at Pittsburgh, and Logic & the Methodology of Science) are also counted, given their close ties to philosophy.  The number of graduates of each school currently in untenured tenure-track positions appears in parentheses after the name of the PhD-granting university. 

1.  Princeton University (8)

2.  New York University (7)

2.  Rutgers University, New Brunswick (7)

4.  University of California, Berkeley (6)

5.  Massachussetts Institute of Technology (5)

6.  Columbia University (4)

6.  Harvard University (4)

6.  Oxford University (4)

6.  Yale University (4)

10.  Cambridge University (3)

11. University of Michigan, Ann Arbor (2)

11. University of Pittsburgh (2, both HPS)

The following schools have one PhD graduate each in an untenured tenure-track position in the "top 20" currently:  Stanford University; Cornell University; University of Chicago; University of Maryland, College Park; University of Wisconsin, Madison; University of York; University of California, Los Angeles; University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill; University of California, Irvine; University of Western Ontario; University of Texas, Austin; University of Arizona; University of Leeds; University of California, San Diego; University of Paris I-Pantheon/Sorbonne; University of Toronto; University of Potsdam.  Below the fold is a listing of the PhDs at each "top 20" school; please e-mail me with corrections.

Virtual dissertation groups, once again

Joshua Smart writes:

VDG is a free service that connects graduate students to provide feedback on dissertation work. Members are grouped with two others working in the same general area of philosophy. About once a month, one member sends some work (3-6K words) to the others, who return feedback and comments in a week or so.

While advisors and committees are important, it can be incredibly helpful to discuss one’s work with peers in a lower-stakes environment, and it can be particularly enlightening to do so with those who take a different approach, outlook, or focus. Not only that, but there is evidence from psychological research that thinking about problems in relation to persons who are geographically distant can increase creativity. With students in programs from many states, countries, and every continent with a philosophy Ph.D. program, Virtual Dissertation Groups is a great way to capture some of these benefits!

You can sign up to participate here. Open sign-ups go through Sep. 15. (Conditional sign-ups through Sep, 22.)

I would be glad to hear from past participants whether this was valuable.  Comments are open for that.

Blast from the past: "David Publishing"

Back in 2013, but still relevant.

AOS for jobs in 2016-17

The "core" was not so core.

Lots of new junior hires posted...

...at PhilJobs.

Job interviews, once again

This NYT piece is making the rounds; interviews for philosophy jobs are, usually (one hopes), more substantive.  We've discussed the issue here before.  Is there anything new to say?

Choosing between graduate programs: overall vs. specialty standing

MOVING TO FRONT FROM 2/26/13, SINCE IT IS THAT TIME OF YEAR!  (And see this related thread from 2011.)

A prospective PhD student writes:

I had a question for you about choosing a graduate program in philosophy, once one has received offers. I thought this might foster a good discussion on your blog, but of course I would like to get your input as well. If you do post this on your blog for discussion, I would like to remain anonymous.

I've received two offers thus far that are competing for my top choice of program. The first is a top-10 program at a top-quality research institution (which will of course manifest itself with the nebulous "prestige" factor, generous funding, light teaching load, better travel opportunities, etc) with strengths broadly similar to mine, while the second is a top-25 program at a strong research institution (second-tier, perhaps) and is an undisputed leader in a couple of pretty specialized fields that are of interest to me. Moreover, the second program is reputed to have a very productive learning environment and great student/faculty relations (jury is out on the first program until I visit soon). In terms of job placement, the former of course has a strong placement record, while the latter has a strong placement record for those who remain within its specialization and work with the program's top philosophers. Given that my interests may change during graduate school (as I hear they often do), what additional considerations should I be making, and can you offer any advice?

My own advice was that if the financial aid packages were comparable (a really key question, in my view), and if the student was fairly confident about his interests, then going to the "top 25" program would make good sense (esp. since it wasn't clear to me the "top 10" program was actually as good in some of the areas the student was interested in--to protect anonymity, I can't disclose those; just to be clear, Chicago is not one of the programs the student is considering).   If others have thoughts on this kind of question, comments are open.  Signed comments will be preferred, though students may post anonymously, but must include a valid e-mail address, that will not appear.

Helping students with publishing--faculty duties?

A reader writes: 

I am philosophy student, with an MA, now going through the PhD admissions process. As is the case with all philosophers, my writing benefits greatly from the feedback I receive from others. 

I've been fortunate to have two papers published [in reputable but not very top journals]. Both papers began life as seminar papers. Thus, I received a lot of feedback on them from my professors, both substantive comments and copy suggestions. 

I imagine it differs from professor to professor, but I'm curious what graduate faculty feel is an appropriate level of feedback/guidance to give when dealing with students trying to getting their work published? I thought of my papers as, say, dissertation chapters, and so, felt like continual engagement with faculty was appropriate. And my professors were more than willing to give thoughtful, and sometimes, line by line feedback. Is this level of engagement to be expected from good, thoughtful professors? (Or, perhaps, is an indication of whether or not a professor is good or thoughtful?) Or is it asking too much? Do professors have any theories on the appropriate level of feedback they give to graduate students? How might they characterize a student too dependent on their feedback?

I'll give my own views, then open this for comments.  To start, students should not try to publish seminar papers unless encouraged by the faculty member that the material is publishable.  And in such a case, the faculty member should try to assist the student with polishing the paper for publication.  Readers?  (Submit your comment only once, it may take awhile for them to appear--busy day here!)

Publishing books and the academic job market

A job seeker writes:

I'm a recent Philosophy PhD and I'm on the job market. I also published my first book with [name omitted] in 2015. However, it seems that the publication of the book has not influenced my prospects.

So I wonder if monographs make a difference to hiring committees when dealing with early career scholars?

Do large research universities no longer place much weight on the publication of books?

To preserve anonymity, I've omitted the name of the publisher of the book--it's an established publishing house, but was not close to  the top 7 the last time I surveyed reader opinion about publishers.  My own sense is that a book from one of the major presses in philosophy would be a huge boost, but that it is too easy to get a book published by the less prestigious presses, and so, at least with major research universities, that won't count for much.  What do readers think?

Cal State-Sacramento's Philosophy Dept. behaving badly--gives job candidates five hours to respond to e-mail offer of a Skype interview!

A job seeker writes:

I thought it might be of interest to you, as it seems to be the product of a challenge to see how many professional norms can be violated in a single email.  The highlights: they want a response within 5 hours, or cannot guarantee an interview; for spots beginning at 8am tomorrow.  Nowhere in the body of the message does the author identify his university (it's Cal State Sacramento).  They were, however, kind enough to attach a list of questions to be asked--fittingly, this single act of kindness is also odd as far as I'm aware.  Incidentally, this is the school that required applicants to create a special web page just for them last year, simply to apply.  (I've heard there were more such hoops later on in the process.  Perhaps this year there will be a fight to the death during flyouts.)

The invitation e-mail, sent five hours before a response was required, follows below the fold: 

The collapse of the history job market relative to the number of new PhDs

A striking chart; I suspect things are not different in philosophy.  Is there similar data for philosophy?

On being "over-qualified" for an untenured tenure-track job

A philosopher writes:

Here are some related questions for a thread on your blog:

(1) How much does having a strong publication record hurt one's chances for getting a job at less research-prestigious institutions? For instance, if a recent PhD has five publications in respected places will this count much against getting a TT job in "the middle of nowhere"? Will hiring committees be inclined to pass over such a candidate, thinking that he or she will just leave in a couple years due to the strong publication record? Or have hiring committees realized that the lack of philosophy jobs makes this strategy a mistake?

(2) Is there much resistance to hiring an associate prof for an assistant job, or a full prof for an associate job, or a full prof for an assistant job? Should there be? Given the horrible job market, an associate or full prof who needs to move from their current position may have few options other than taking an assistant job. 

I'll offer a few thoughts/surmises, and then open it for comments from readers.

On #1, I suspect it is still the case that schools that are non-research-intensive will wonder about the commitment of a junior candidate whose publication record is too strong.  I'm also not sure this is irrational, though it may be a question of degree.  But publication in top-tier journals is the most important credential for professional advancement and opportunities, so a rookie who arrives with articles in top-tier journals is, indeed, probably likely to have and probably seek other positions.  It's importnat to remember that at state schools in particular, there is never certainty that a line that becomes vacant will be authorized to be re-filled--and that may especially be true when it was just filled two years ago, and now the candidate hired has decamped.  That might make a Dean skeptical about whether the department can do appropriate hiring, even if that is an unfair suspicion.

On #2, there is sometimes such resistance, but mostly I expect for budgetary reasons:  if the Dean authorzies a junior position, and it is filled with someone who will likely seek early tenure given his/her record, that may present budgetary problems for the Dean.   Similarly, a Dean may be skeptical that someone qualified for a tenured position will really accept an untenured tenure-track position, thinking the candidate will try to negotiate a higher rank from the start--something which, again, may not be feasible as a matter of the budget.

What do readers think about these questions?

Blast from the past: Decoding letters of reference

Originally from 2010, but reaching back even further.

New free on-line system for confidential letters of recommendation

MOVING TO FRONT AGAIN (ORIGINALLY POSTED NOV. 30)--INTERESTING DISCUSSION/COMMENTS, AS WELL AS REPLIES FROM PROF. FARACI, ABOUT A VERY IMPORTANT INITIATIVE

Philosopher David Faraci asked me to share this announcement, which I'm happy to do:

Introducing MARGY: Free Management for Confidential Letters of Recommendation

Applicants on the academic job market spend thousands of dollars a year to have professional dossier services handle their confidential letters of recommendation. Some of this requires staff involvement: filling out forms, uploading to proprietary sites, etc. But a good deal of it is just sending emails. The only reason a middleperson is necessary is because the emails need to include a confidential attachment.

Introducing MARGY [hard ‘g’] (Managing Academic Recommendations Gratis Yay), a FREE automated system for emailing confidential letters of recommendation. Letter-writers upload letters to MARGY’s secure server; applicants tell the system where to email those letters. Confidentiality is maintained via a whitelist; the system will only send letters to email addresses that have been confirmed as being maintained by a relevant hiring entity.

MARGY is currently in beta testing by creator David Faraci and co-developer Graham Leach-Krouse. They are looking for people to help with the beta test: to play around with the site and the email system, or to look directly at the source code, and help them debug and increase usability. The more people who help, the faster MARGY can be officially released, and the sooner people can start saving time and money.

They are also looking for donations of server space.

MARGY: http://margymail.com.

Source Code: https://github.com/davidfaraci/margy

Bug Reports and Feature Requests: https://github.com/davidfaraci/margy/issues

Questions or Comments: admin@margymail.com

This sounds very promising.  I'm opening comments for any questions or concerns about how this will work.

Law & Philosophy Fellowship at University of Chicago Law School for 2017-18

The ad and details about the post.  Next year's Fellow will teach the Law & Philosophy Workshop with Martha Nussbaum on the "'Environment and Animal Rights' (including, e.g., philosophical discussions of the moral status of nonhuman animals and the philosophical basis for claims involving them, the ethics of climate change, the ethical basis for valuing ecosystems, and the upshot of all of this for both domestic and international law)."   This year's Fellow is Max Etchemendy, and recent Fellows also include Amanda Greene, Sarah Conly, and Justin Coates.

Schools for a JD/PhD in Philosophy, 2016-17

MOVING TO FRONT--UPDATED

The following law schools (listed in rough order of strength of the law school overall--though these are all major law schools) have a strong commitment to philosophy:

Yale University

University of Chicago

New York University

University of California, Berkeley

University of Pennsylvania

University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

University of Virginia

Georgetown University

University of California, Los Angeles

Law school hiring is extremely pedigree-sensitive (more so than philosophy), so the further down this list you go for the JD, the more difficult your prospects will be in legal academia, though all these schools have graduates who now teach in law schools.  (See, e.g., this data.)   Yale, NYU, Berkeley, Michigan, and UCLA all have "top ten" philosophy departments, though with differing strengths.  Chicago has a "top twenty" philosophy department, though its strengths are primarily in the history of philosophy (esp. ancient and post-Kantian Continental), which could be a good fit for a student with strong historical interests (including the Continental traditions in philosophy).  Penn has an established JD/PhD program, and a philosophy department with particular strength in political philosophy, which could be a good complement for a JD/PhD student.   (Columbia still has the great legal philosopher Joseph Raz on a half-time basis, though he in his late 70s, and I don't know how much longer he will continue to teach.)

UPDATE:  A student writes:

Thanks for your recent blog post about schools for a JD/PhD in Philosophy. I am looking to apply shortly for philosophy PhDs (and I already hold a deferred JD offer, though may reapply elsewhere if necessary) so this was very interesting. If you don’t mind, I would be very interested to know your answers to a few questions I have.

Firstly, neither Harvard nor Stanford appear on your list. Both are top law schools with top philosophy departments, so I was wondering what your rationale was for not including them? They also seem to be amongst the few law schools to fund (or mostly fund) the JD component if one takes a JD/PhD (unlike, for instance, Yale) which seems like a fairly important selling point.

Secondly, what are your thoughts on taking the PhD at a different institution to one’s law school? It seems to be theoretically possible, and there appear to be some obvious benefits — NYU, for instance, has a great philosophy department, but there are much stronger JD programmes. Similarly, I could try to sandwich a JD between an Oxford BPhil and DPhil (if I was lucky enough to be granted funded admission; though — as I did very well in my philosophy undergrad [in the UK] — that is not a negligible possibility). Those are just hypotheticals; but do you think that there are good reasons to only take the JD and the PhD at the same institution?

Since others may have similar questions, I thought they would be worth addressing here. 

APA placement data project

The website has been updated so that it is searchable in various ways.  Unfortunately, there's still no distinction between the kinds of tenure-track jobs graduates secure, but perhaps that will come.  (See, e.g., this.)  Still, there is useful information here, including about AOS by department.  A caveat:  I've not double-checked any of this for accuracy, but perhaps someone will.

Visualization of jobs in philosophy

Courtesy of Mark Alfano (Delft).

Job Candidate Mentoring Program for Women in Philosophy seeking both mentors and mentees for 2016-17

Philosopher Amanda Greene (UCL) asked me to share the following:

The Job Candidate Mentoring Program for Women in Philosophy is recruiting both mentors and mentees for the 2016-2017 job market season.

Women who are interested in serving as mentors should complete the website form before September 1, 2016. Mentors should currently hold a permanent academic post and have had job market experience at the junior level in the past seven years. Women who are interested in being mentored should complete the website form before September 1, 2016. Preference will be given to job candidates who have not participated in this mentoring program before.

PhD programs that do a good job training students for teaching jobs (e.g., in community colleges)?

Peter Nennig, an MA student at Georgia State University, writes:

Since the graduate school application season is coming up, I am wondering if you could write a Leiter Reports post asking which philosophy graduate programs would be valuable for those most interested in teaching, especially at community colleges. I know from first-hand experience that Georgia State University has done an excellent job with teaching preparation. I think it would be great if there was a post that can lead to a discussion about other schools that (i) offer teacher training, (ii) offer courses on teaching philosophy, or (iii) have the goal of training teachers.

Readers?  Links and information welcome.

Information for current and recent students of Thomas Pogge

The APA Ombudsperson for Discrimination and Sexual Harassment, philosopher Ruth Chang (Rutgers), asked me to share the following statement:

As former students of Thomas Pogge, we suspect that there is one group of people who have been harmed in relation to the recent allegations against Pogge, who have not been much considered in the discussion surrounding them. It is not our intention here to take a stand on the truth or falsity of the allegations. Rather, regardless of their veracity, current and recent students of Pogge’s, male or female, may now feel that they cannot turn to him for mentoring, as any continued involvement with Pogge may taint them or call into question their accomplishments and abilities in the eyes of other members of the profession. Indeed this is one of the reasons we’ve chosen to keep our own identities anonymous. For those who are finishing their PhDs, or have not yet secured tenure track employment, that loss of mentoring is a great loss indeed. Though we both secured tenure track employment before the allegations were made public, we empathize with the situation of Pogge’s graduate students and post-grads who have not yet done so.

Accordingly, we are reaching out to current and recent students of Pogge’s to determine whether they are in need of alternate mentoring. If so, and the demand is great enough, we propose to develop a list of senior philosophers in related areas who would be willing to step in and provide such mentoring. Please note that while a letter of recommendation for use on the job market is a desirable and certainly possible outcome of a mentoring relationship of this type, being paired with a mentor would by no means guarantee such a letter. Rather, it would provide an opportunity to gain feedback on some papers or dissertation chapters and to receive general advice on professional issues. The exact extent of that mentoring would be up to the junior and the senior philosophers to determine on an individual basis.

The identity of anyone requesting mentoring would be kept confidential, and be known only by us (the two former graduate students of Pogge’s organizing the connection), and the eventual mentor. At this point, we are only asking for expressions of interest from current or past students of Pogge’s – both male and female – who have not secured permanent employment and who would like to be connected to an alternate mentor. Registering your interest now does not commit you to eventually being paired with a mentor – it only helps us to determine how many potential mentors to contact. You may decide at a later date whether you would actually like to be paired with a mentor. Please contact us by September 1, 2016 at alternate.mentoring@gmail.com. Please help to spread the word to Pogge’s current and former students.

I think this is a sensible undertaking for the reasons given.  But I'd like to emphasize that it's also clear that Professor Pogge has worked with and written letters for many students, including female students (and including female students "of color"), in which there have been no allegations of misconduct, quid pro quo endorsements, or anything of the kind.  (I say it is "clear" because I've been told that by various students and others for whom Prof. Pogge has written.)

New website offerings interviews with philosophers outside the academy...

...and/or pursuing philosophy in less conventional ways than academia, courtesy of Derek Bowman.

The slave revolt in philosophy, redux

In my interview awhile back with Clifford Sosis, I remarked that,

All the best suggestions for improving the PGR have come, without exception, from those who contributed to it over the years. Almost all the other criticisms were on the spectrum from self-serving to silly. The PGR was a fabulous resource, unlike anything else in any field, that let prospective students in on the secret sociology of the hierarchy in the profession. I hope it can continue, but the “slave revolt” in philosophy exacerbated by the Internet is now a real obstacle.

Could you explain the term "slave revolt" for folks unfamiliar with Nietzsche?

By “slave revolt,” I’m alluding to Nietzsche’s idea that our Judeo-Christian morality arose from an inversion of previous values, an inversion that was self-interested, but in the interest of the “slaves,” literal and otherwise. I do think what’s happened in the last few years is that people who aren’t very good at philosophy and/or feel otherwise marginalized in the profession have taken to the Internet, and under various high-minded sounding moralized banners—equality, fairness, inclusiveness and so on—have launched an attack on the idea of philosophical excellence and smarts.

Now along comes the latest example, a presentation on "Prestige: The first and final hurdle for a more inclusive philosophy," though it might just as well have been called, "Excellence:  The first and final hurdle for a more inclusive philosophy."  The author, philosopher Helen De Cruz, has a PhD from the University of Gronignen, and is, I am guessing, concerned that those, like herself, from non-prestige departments are unfairly excluded from professional opportunities in philosophy.  Now she herself is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at Oxford Brookes University (not part of Oxford, but a separate institution in the same town), so she has done well, but might, of course, be doing better were if not for the supposed "prestige" bias. 

Since I know nothing about her work, it may well be that Professor De Cruz is someone who has been a victim of pernicious "prestige" bias.  Pernicious prestige bias is when someone thinks that because someone got a PhD from Fancy Pants University they must be competent (or, the reverse).   That's bullshit and pernicious, of course, and the PGR upset that apple cart a long time ago.  But what most cyber-complainers call "prestige bias" is that hiring departments prefer candidates from well-regarded departments.  That's plainly true, but perhaps well-regarded departments are so-regarded because they are actually departments with very good faculty and very goods student?  Prof. De Cruz never fairly considers that possibility.  Non-pernicious prestige bias is simply a rational and time-saving heuristic for identifying candidates with excellent qualifications trained by excellent faculty, attributes that, in the PGR era, are well-tracked by what's now called "prestige."  As Prof. De Cruz notes, "prestige" bias is a feature of academic hiring in all disciplines; the difference in philosophy is that it no longer simply tracks "brand name" universities, but now reflects where the strongest clusters of philosophers and students actually are.  (In what other academic field does everyone know that two of the very best programs are at NYU and Rutgers?  There is none.)

"Excellence" doesn't, in reality, exclude any demographic groups, except the mediocre.

Alarming data about schools awarding the highest percentage of philosophy PhDs to women, 2004-2014

Over that decade, nearly one hundred women have been awarded PhDs in philosophy from just three schools, two mediocre and one a joke:  the University of Memphis, the University of Oregon, and the California Institute of Integral Studies.  Indeed, of the ten programs that graduated the highest percentage of women during this decade, just three are leading and serious PhD programs:  MIT, North Carolina, and Minnesota.   Those concerned about the representation of women in the profession should be greatly alarmed by these facts.  As we've noted before, women are hardly well-served by getting PhDs from weak (or worse) programs.

Academic job market in law

I know there are always some readers thinking about law school, but also hoping to continue in academia, so you may find this data of interest concerning the 2015-16 law teaching job market.   Applications to law schools have declined by about 30% since 2010, as the recession took its toll on legal employment.  Prior to this crash, 160 or more rookie tenure-track law faculty were hired each year; that dropped to about 65 in 2013-14, and held steady in 2014-15. This year we saw a slight uptick:  there were about 80 new tenure-track hires nationwide.  The law teaching market is different, of course, in that those seeking law teaching jobs generally have clear non-academic options (hence three of our candidates this year turned down good tenure-track job offers for personal reasons; all will return to lucrative legal practice opportunities, and try the academic market again in the future).   With law school enrollments having stabilized, I expect there to be a slow but steady increase in the hiring of rookie faculty, though I very much doubt we will get back to the pre-crash numbers in the foreseeable future, but the new normal will probably be about 100 new positions filled each year.  As the linked data suggest, hiring for law teaching positions is extremely pedigree-sensitive, much more so than in academic philosophy even.

Recent PhD placement data: women more likely than men to secure permanent positions within two years of the PhD

The data and various charts are here.  What I can't tell from this data is what is "held constant" when the authors say that women are more likely than men to get permanent posts all else equal.  For example, does this analysis "hold constant" the quality of the PhD program from which the graduates come?  I'm not sure.  If more women are graduating from strong programs, proportionally, than men, then the result wouldn't be surprising.   Comments are open for anyone who can clarify what's going on here.