March 08, 2015

Academia’s 1 Percent

Will your Ph.D. lead to an academic job? To answer that question, prospective students are often encouraged to see how recent graduates fared -- a task easier said than done. Department placement lists are catalogs of untold stories, a logroll of the disappeared. Those who left academia are erased: According to my own alma mater, for example, I never existed, along with the majority of my colleagues who failed to find academic jobs in the Great Recession. There is no placement list for the displaced.

A more useful indicator of whether your doctoral program is a pathway to employment lies in whom the department hires. Because chances are, you will see the same few institutional names again and again. During my own time in graduate school, my department hired several faculty members, all with different specialties and skills, all with one thing in common: Harvard, Harvard, Harvard, Harvard. The evidence is not only anecdotal.

A recent study by Aaron Clauset, Samuel Arbesman, and Daniel B. Larremore shows that “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.”

This study follows the discovery by political scientist Robert Oprisko that more than half of political-science professorships were filled by applicants from only 11 universities. What that means is something every Ph.D. from a less-prestigious institution knows all too well: No amount of publishing, teaching excellence, or grants can compensate for an affiliation that is less than favorable in the eyes of a search committee. The fate of aspiring professors is sealed not with job applications but with graduate-school applications. Institutional affiliation has come to function like inherited wealth. Those who have it operate in a different market, more immune from the dark trends – unemployment, adjunctification – that dog their less-prestigious peers. The Great Recession is notable not only for its relentlessness – many people, six years later, are still waiting to feel the effects of the “recovery” – but for the way a tiny elite was able to continue their luxurious lifestyle while the livelihood of the majority was turned upside down.

During the first two years of the “recovery,” the mean net worth of households in the upper 7 percent of the wealth distribution rose by an estimated 28 percent, while the mean net worth of households in the lower 93 percent dropped by 4 percent. With wages largely stagnant and cost of living soaring, it made less difference what one did during the recovery than what kind of money one had before the crash. More and more, the American Dream is a foregone conclusion, a tale told in reverse. The same trend holds true in academia: career stagnation based on institutional affiliation. Where you come from remains cruelly indicative of where you will go. What you actually do on the journey is, to the status-obsessed, irrelevant. With institutional bias in hiring now proven by multiple social scientists, why don’t prospective graduate students simply limit their applications to favored elite institutions?

The answer is often financial, and, again, speaks to privilege and discrimination endemic to academic culture. The most prestigious universities – the Ivy League, University of Chicago, Stanford University, the University of California system – tend to lie in the most expensive parts of the country. Even with full funding, it is nearly impossible to live in such costly cities without incurring debt, given that stipends tend to be $25,000 or less. Rather than go to an expensive, elite program, a fiscally responsible student might be inclined to select a solid program with good funding in a cheap city. But academia was not designed for the fiscally responsible: It was designed for those for whom money is a non issue.

Academia’s currency is prestige, but prestige is always backed up by money, whether the expenditure for life in a costly city, the expectation of unpaid or underpaid labor, or research trips assumed to be paid out-of-pocket. As university infrastructure grows more elaborate and US News and World Report rankings become increasingly valued, elite colleges often appear less concerned with providing an education than selling a lifestyle. Whereas students have often chosen a college believing that its reputation would enhance their own, colleges now solicit wealthy students believing that the students’ prestige will enhance the college. The same is true of faculty. As Clauset and his Slate co-writer Joel Warner note, “For a university, the easiest way to burnish your reputation is to hire graduates from top schools, thereby importing a bit of what made these institutions elite in the first place.”

Where does this leave the majority of Ph.D.’s who are not affiliated with the small group of approved institutions? Last week, adjuncts across the country staged a walkout to protest poor pay and working conditions. Adjuncting itself is a product of an academe that operates on an almost Calvinist faith in its 1 percent: Adjuncts are viewed as “tainted” by their own job experience, and their low status regarded as “proof” that they never deserved a tenure-track position. Though graduates of elite universities were certainly among the striking adjuncts – the academic job market is bad enough that even the Ivy League is not entirely immune – most adjuncts tend to come from less prestigious institutions, with their contingent positions a seeming punishment for failing to start out right.

No one’s career should end at its beginning. But for thousands of Ph.D. students, that is exactly what is happening. The candor of studies like Clauset’s and Oprisko’s should be applauded. It is only in recognizing institutional bias -- and exploring the issues of class that surround it -- that hiring can be made more equitable. -

From: https://chroniclevitae.com/news/929-academia-s-1-percent#sthash.nXiKbzz0.dpuf

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Political correctness also helps.

I know of someone who got a nice tenure-track position because the government wanted more "women and visible minorities" in academic positions. She, being from a certain part of the world, fit the bill.

Anatomy helps, as well. It probably didn't hurt her career prospects that she had a less than arm's-length relationship with her Ph. D. supervisor, if you get my meaning. He was a randy old goat while she was enough of a tart to go along with it.

Working hard and playing by the rules counts for nothing any more.

Anonymous said...

SADLY I AGREE WITH MY COLLEAGUE (ABOVE) THAT THERE IS A GREAT DEAL OF NEPOTISM AND UNFAIRNESS....THIS AMOUNTS TO BULLYING....

IT COMES IN VARIOUS FORMS TOO...

I KNOW OF DEPARTMENTS WHERE WOMEN ARE OPENLY DISCRIMINATED AGAINST IN PROMOTIONS AND WHERE THERE IS A SERIOUS GLASS CEILING...

I ALSO KNOW OF DEPARTMENTS WHICH ARE SO HOMOPHOBIC IT WOULD BE DIFFICULT FOR A GAY EMPLOYEE TO GET A START- AND ALSO OF DEPARTMENTS THAT ARE SO LGBT-PLATFORM WAVING, THERE MIGHT BE PROBLEMS FOR STAFF WHO DO NOT IDENTIFY WITH THE LGBT CAUSE....

IT IS SHAMEFUL THAT THE BEST PERSON DOES NOT OFTEN GET THE JOB....

Anonymous said...

There's also the aspect of being too qualified.

While I was teaching, I joined Mensa. I thought it was something to be proud of, since I've always considered intelligence to be a gift. I wasn't shy about it, either, as I put my certificate on the wall of my office.

I simply thought that people would accept my having a high IQ as a fact. Nothing changed about me others than I finally received recognition for something that was there all along.

I couldn't have been more wrong. I was accused of being too smart for my teaching position, which, according to my detractors, was one reason I had difficulties with my students. Never mind that we accepted people who were lazy, had no talent whatsoever, or should never have been allowed to attend in the first place.

On the other hand, if I *didn't* use my intellect and come up with new and wonderful ways of "engaging" my students, I got into trouble for that, too.

My enemies were always looking for ways to persecute me, something which started almost immediately after I started. My belonging to Mensa only gave them another excuse.

Deborah said...

This is a good article, which I felt started to get to the reasons for the current decline in respect for universities. The lack of social mobility into universities, after brief moments of openness in the 1960s and 1990s, in the Uk at least, has disappeared. Elitism, conservatism and unreasonable expectations rules. Exploitation of students is increasing. On a slightly more optimistic note, PhDs still have great currency in some sectors and you may find employers who will value you there, regardless of your background. Better than being treated with institutionalised disdain for years, which is what awaits you in academia unless you are very lucky. You can make part of a career out of blogging.Good luck to all PhD students reading this blog.

Anonymous said...

"This study follows the discovery by political scientist Robert Oprisko that more than half of political-science professorships were filled by applicants from only 11 universities. What that means is something every Ph.D. from a less-prestigious institution knows all too well: No amount of publishing, teaching excellence, or grants can compensate for an affiliation that is less than favorable in the eyes of a search committee. The fate of aspiring professors is sealed not with job applications but with graduate-school applications."

That is NOT what Oprisko's study showed. It is what he wanted it to show, but he only measured placement at PhD granting universities, an incredibly small slice of the total academic job market in pol-sci. In fact, a simple glance at the placement record of most departments will show that a large number of PhDs do get jobs in academia. It would be misleading to infer that placement at R1 schools is somehow characteristic of placement at ALL universities.