From scottv@ocean.washington.edu Thu Sep 7 17:14:04 2000 Date: Mon, 28 Aug 2000 23:24:51 -0700 (PDT) From: Scott Veirs To: scottv@bromide.ocean.washington.edu Subject: TP Msg. #246 TRADE-OFFS TO OBTAINING TEACHING EXPERIENCE PRIOR TO BECOMING A PROFESSOR (fwd) ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Thu, 10 Aug 2000 08:19:52 -0700 From: Rick Reis To: tomorrows-professor@lists.Stanford.EDU Subject: TP Msg. #246 TRADE-OFFS TO OBTAINING TEACHING EXPERIENCE PRIOR TO BECOMING A PROFESSOR TOMORROW'S PROFESSOR(SM) LISTSERV "desk-top faculty development, one hundred times a year" http://sll.stanford.edu/projects/tomprof/newtomprof/index.shtml Over 10,000 subscribers in 86 countries ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Produced by the Stanford University Learning Laboratory (SLL) http://sll.stanford.edu/ in a shared mission partnership with the American Association for Higher Education (AAHE) http://www.aahe.org/ and The National Teaching and Learning Forum (NT&LF) http://www.ntlf.com/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Folks: In a recent Chronicle of Higher Education column, (http://chronicle.com/jobs/2000/07/2000072102c.htm) I argued for the need to obtain teaching experience prior to becoming a professor. Below is a letter I received from a reader raising some important questions about the trade-offs that might be required to carry out such a plan. Your comments are most welcome. Regards, Rick Reis reis@stanford.edu UP NEXT: The Art and Science of Avoiding the Dissertation Tomorrow's Academic Careers -------- 632 words ----------- TRADE-OFFS TO OBTAINING TEACHING EXPERIENCE PRIOR TO BECOMING A PROFESSOR ------------------------ Dear Professor Reis, I have just read your [Chronicle of Higher Education] column titled "How To Get All-Important Teaching Experience." In some ways I wish I had read something like this four years ago when I was beginning my graduate studies. In May I received my Ph.D. in sociology from X. Everything has turned out well for me regarding employment. This fall I will be a visiting assistant professor of sociology at X, and in the spring I will take up a full-time tenure-track position as assistant professor of sociology at X. This, however, is the pleasant ending to a rather difficult year. I became ABD [all but dissertation] in July 1999 and was fully confident I would finish in time to graduate by May 2000. While I fulfilled this goal, I also spent that time applying for teaching posts for fall 2000. My successes only came at the very end in May. Partly this seems a function of search committees being hesitant to trust the veracity of an ABD's projections for finishing the dissertation. But there is more to this story. I called and e-mailed several search committee chairs to obtain feedback on what I needed to do to improve my credentials and become a solid candidate for reaching the interview stage of the search process. Uniformly, their responses were that I lacked teaching experience. In reality, I have held four TA positions while at X. (I began my Ph.D. program in 1994). For each of these I received outstanding evaluations from the students and professors. I enclosed these evaluations for review by most search committees. Additionally, I had also taught my own sociology course in 1990 while an undergraduate writing my senior thesis at X. Yet these credentials coupled with my impending completion of doctoral studies and several publications seemed to mean little or nothing. The common refrain to my inquires was that I needed more teaching experience, specifically teaching my own courses. If I had attempted to seek out such autonomous teaching experience, I would never have finished my degree in the time I did. Specifically, I spent a great deal of my time in graduate school functioning as a participant-observer at my research sites -- time that otherwise might have been used seeking and teaching independent courses. If I had been teaching, the time and process required for my data collection would have slowed significantly and I would still remain a student today thereby increasing my student debt burden and advancing my age as a beginning professional academic (I am 31 now). So, I have three questions for you given these circumstances and my experience: 1) While my final outcome in finding work clearly was fine, it might easily not have been so if I hadn't secured the attention of good colleges at the end of this spring semester; why, then, is it that so many search committees are expecting graduate students to already be quasi-professors with ample teaching experience (and ample publications) before they have even finished their doctoral studies?; 2) How is it possible for graduate students to acquire this experience and finish their studies in a reasonably timely manner; and 3) Do you foresee this trend continuing or will it worsen? I use the word "worsen" because I see this as a truly damaging state of affairs. If my experience is indicative of a trend, then it appears that upon graduation most graduate students who have focused on completing their studies rather than teaching a lot will face upon graduation a year or more of searching for poorly compensated adjunct work with no benefits or security at the same time that they are trying to cope with student loan payments coming due and publishing their research in academic journals. Thanks so much and please accept my apologies for the length of this message. Sincerely, XX ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Note: Anyone can SUBSCRIBE to Tomorrows-Professor Listserver by sending the following e-mail message to: subscribe tomorrows-professor To UNSUBSCRIBE to the Tomorrows-Professor send the following e-mail message to: unsubscribe tomorrows-professor ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- -++**==--++**==--++**==--++**==--++**==--++**==--++**== This message was posted through the Stanford campus mailing list server. If you wish to unsubscribe from this mailing list, send the message body of "unsubscribe tomorrows-professor" to majordomo@lists.stanford.edu