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April 5, 2005
Holding Patterns
Several days ago, Jason mentioned a Chronicle (subscription required) article on teaching post-docs in the humanities. As Jason notes, the article is skeptical of these post-docs, many of which, like Georgia Tech's Marion L. Brittain Postdoctoral Fellowship, have heavy teaching loads. And, of course, there's some debate about whether or not these post-docs lead to tenure-track jobs.
I had originally planned to mention this article into my earlier comments about my own job concerns, but wasn't sure how I wanted to address it. While I'm certainly concerned about my job situation, I'm also aware of how much I learned as a Fellow, especially when it comes to getting a sense of how departments function. I also know that I'm going to have some difficulty judging this experience while my current plans are in limbo. It's also impossible to guess what I'd be doing if I had stayed at the University of Illinois one more year in the non-tenure-track position I held for two years while finishing my dissertation (the Chronicle article mentions that this program underwent heavy cuts in 2003, a year after I left).
The teaching load for the fellowship has been fairly demanding, three sections of freshman composition per seemster with 25 students per class. I picked up an extra course this spring because it meant the opportunity to teach an introduction to film not to mention a little extra money in my pocket, leading to a 3/4 load this year and commuting to campus five days a week in Atlanta's notoriously annoying traffic. But even with a relatively heavy teaching load, I've managed to get a fair amount of writing done over the course of the post-doc, and I do think these experiences will serve me well when (or if) I take a tenure-track job in the near future.
But because of my current situation, I'm sure it wouldn't hurt for the universities that rely on teaching post-docs to have more specific conversations about non-academic careers. I'm not saying that I'd make that choice, it seems clear that these universities owe it to the people who teach such a large percentage of their freshman composition classes to assit them in thinking about rewarding alternatives outside the university.
As this post implies, I'm still thinking a lot about future plans and haven't come to any firm conclusions. But thanks in large part to all your supportive comments, I am feeling somewhat better about things.
Update: Scott Jaschik mentions a recent survey that seems to show that most post-docs are generally satisified with their positions. Major complaints among post-docs: childcare benefits (generally a non-issue for me, but I'd certainly support adding them) and the lack of professional training. The study does note that based on the average work week (51 hours a week, significantly less than I'd guess that I work) and average salary ($38,000, I'd rather not say what I get paid), post-docs have an average hourly salary ($14.90/hr.) similar to what janitors earn at Harvard. On one level, I have no complaints about that (janitors should get paid fairly for their work and certainly deserve more given what they have to do), but it does put into perspective the absurd Horowitz claims about our work and what we get paid for it.
Posted by chuck at April 5, 2005 9:30 PM
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