Coronavirus and academic job hiring for 20-21

[purplepepper]

If we are all still alive in the fall, do you think coronavirus/current economy will have any effects on whether deans approve TT lines for next cycle? 

Obviously I'm way over thinking things (as I guess I do)..but since I know that lines usually get approved in the spring, I was wondering if anyone had any insight if we will see fewer tt openings in the fall, given the current market. Or perhaps it's too early to tell? Or perhaps even the warm weather will come and make everything better! one can hope...

 

[Quickmick]

Hello @purplepepper ! Before I had something secured I was searching for jobs fairly regularly. I may be confused, but if you are speaking of being hired to start in the fall of 2020, jobs started getting posting in the fall of 2019, and I saw many jobs offered in the Nov-Jan window. I would think that regardless of the virus, the timeline to interview and vet applicants would mean that many offers have already been extended. Just logistically, if I am considering moving for a faculty job, I would want to know in the spring if it was going to happen as I have to take steps to sell a house, pack, find a place to live, etc.

My thinking is that with many institutions in a state of flux, increased levels of uncertainty, and recent market activity, we may see fewer professionals leaving the workplace or looking to move in the short term, which would tend to influence decisions made in 2020-21, thus impact 2021-2022 but this is only a guess.

This article has some helpful information about the timelines generally : https://www.higheredjobs.com/articles/articleDisplay.cfm?ID=491

Good luck I hope you find what you are looking for and if I am missing something please let me know, I think I might be confused, as the post title is hiring fo20-21 but then you say 'for next cycle,' which may mean 21-22?

Q

 

Edited March 21, 2020 by Quickmick

[purplepepper]

Hi @Quickmick 

Thanks for your response!

Yes, I did indeed mean jobs that will be advertised in the fall of the AY 20-21, for positions that start in 21-22. Sorry if that was confusing  My own sense of these timelines is that college administrations approve tt lines in late spring/early summer, and then they are advertised the following fall. I suppose there is some wiggle room here, and that maybe these approvals can be made over the summer or into the early fall too. But now faced with the impending end of the world (obviously) I'm worried about how all this is going to effect the hiring processes for next year. Le sigh. 

 

Edited March 21, 2020 by purplepepper

[Levon3]

I am also pretty scared about this.

[Faith786]

I am SO glad I found this thread. I had posted a similar question as well in another post. I just wanted to state that before the Covid19 crisis I had several interviews and one campus visit. I applied for over 30 job applications to date; some were immediate for 2019 which closed in 2019.  I received polite emails stating that the position(s) were filled.

For the jobs with the August 2020 start dates, the positions are still open although it is now late March and I would have thought that if the start time was so immediate, they would have called people for interviews by now. 

Having said that, a TT position that I had applied for back in November 2019 had a closing in Jan 2020; I was telephone interviewed in late Jan; and then emailed/called again in Feb; and had a campus visit in early March. I have still not heard back.  A number of universities in the midwest and northwestern United States have implemented hiring freezes; but I never applied to them anyway. Let's hope the TT hiring continues despite this new 2020 Recession...I am still optimistic. 

[purplepepper]

@Faith786

First, congrats on getting a number of "bites" on the market this year. From what I've been learning while on the market it takes a couple of cycles to finally get it--some are lucky and get jobs right away, some not as much  

Anyway, out of curiosity, do you know what universities have implemented hiring freezes? Are these new freezes in response to the current crisis, or are these older policies that have been in place for a couple years now? 

I would like to be optimistic for the fall too, and am desperately looking for signs that it's ok to be optimistic (hence this thread ?). I'm also wondering how much of this will depend on freshmen enrollment numbers. 

[Levon3]

The question about freshman enrollment numbers is a good one. I know that one search at my institution was suspended due to the pandemic, but as a lowly student who is not on the search committee, I haven't received  updates about whether they'll consider virtual alternatives or wait until next fall or otherwise. (private institution, fwiw)

Edited March 22, 2020 by Levon3
eta institution type

[Faith786]

On 3/22/2020 at 12:07 PM, purplepepper said:

@Faith786

First, congrats on getting a number of "bites" on the market this year. From what I've been learning while on the market it takes a couple of cycles to finally get it--some are lucky and get jobs right away, some not as much  

Anyway, out of curiosity, do you know what universities have implemented hiring freezes? Are these new freezes in response to the current crisis, or are these older policies that have been in place for a couple years now? 

I would like to be optimistic for the fall too, and am desperately looking for signs that it's ok to be optimistic (hence this thread ?). I'm also wondering how much of this will depend on freshmen enrollment numbers. 

@purplepepper

Thank you! I would feel even better if I actually got an offer, lol. ? Miami University implemented a freeze. I think Kansas State, and Wright State in Ohio, too.  Yes, those freezes are due to Covid19.  I think our optimism is good, because universities continue to post TT positions, I checked and some posted positions two days ago, on the weekend!!

[ZeChocMoose]

I know that The Professor Is In is collecting which schools have announced a hiring freeze due to COVID-19 and compiled into this blog post: http://theprofessorisin.com/2020/03/24/schools-announcing-a-hiring-freeze/  There are also some people responding to her tweet with school names that are not included in the blog post.

I know at my particular institution - we haven't announced a hiring freeze but are pausing any search that has not extended an offer yet.  :/   Yea, so not the greatest of times to be job searching. 

My suggestion would be to think about doing a postdoc or a non-academic research position for a year or two if getting a TT job does not work out due to a (potentially) lower number of jobs for next year.  How disruptive the coronavirus is going to be - is hard to tell right now.  I think it is going to depend on how long it takes to contain the situation and what effect this may have on fall enrollments.  A couple universities are also declaring financial exigency which allows them to lay off tenured faculty members... so I also would be prepared for some postsecondary schools to close.

[purplepepper]

Thanks for sharing the link--

I've heard that some schools are cancelling searches and not extending offers--that really sucks. And that would be terrible to be laid off as a tenured faculty member! ?

I wonder how long will this persist--it's if it's just for this semester, if these hiring freezes will affect tt searches in the fall, or if by May/June these restrictions will start to lift (I hope the latter). No one has a crystal ball, unfortunately, but I hope we will have some clarity in a couple weeks. 

If anyone else has insights I'd be interested in hearing them...

 

[Faith786]

On 3/25/2020 at 10:06 AM, purplepepper said:

Thanks for sharing the link--

I've heard that some schools are cancelling searches and not extending offers--that really sucks. And that would be terrible to be laid off as a tenured faculty member! ?

I wonder how long will this persist--it's if it's just for this semester, if these hiring freezes will affect tt searches in the fall, or if by May/June these restrictions will start to lift (I hope the latter). No one has a crystal ball, unfortunately, but I hope we will have some clarity in a couple weeks. 

If anyone else has insights I'd be interested in hearing them...

 

@purplepepper Hey, thanks for the comment. 

I think I can ease some of the worry...I do not think tenured faculty members would be laid off. Tenured faculty members have achieved one of the hardest things in academia, namely tenure, they are on the path to a permanent life-time job. They have proved their track record for service, teaching, and research.  It would be more conceivable that non-tenured, adjunct members might be laid off, because there is no job guarantee for them and they live contract-to-contract, and they have not had the service, teaching, and research contributions to the same extent that a tenure-track or tenured faculty member have had.  

The universities would be embroiled in litigation if tenured faculty members were ever to be laid off...

But then again, the adjuncts are doing the majority of teaching, at low pay, which is efficient for the university...so who knows how this will play out. 

 

Edited April 2, 2020 by Faith786

[slouching]

Worth reading: https://www.chronicle.com/article/The-Great-Recession-Was-Bad/248317?cid=wsinglestory_hp_1a.

[Faith786]

On 3/24/2020 at 10:33 PM, ZeChocMoose said:

I know that The Professor Is In is collecting which schools have announced a hiring freeze due to COVID-19 and compiled into this blog post: http://theprofessorisin.com/2020/03/24/schools-announcing-a-hiring-freeze/  There are also some people responding to her tweet with school names that are not included in the blog post.

I know at my particular institution - we haven't announced a hiring freeze but are pausing any search that has not extended an offer yet.  ?  Yea, so not the greatest of times to be job searching. 

My suggestion would be to think about doing a postdoc or a non-academic research position for a year or two if getting a TT job does not work out due to a (potentially) lower number of jobs for next year.  How disruptive the coronavirus is going to be - is hard to tell right now.  I think it is going to depend on how long it takes to contain the situation and what effect this may have on fall enrollments.  A couple universities are also declaring financial exigency which allows them to lay off tenured faculty members... so I also would be prepared for some postsecondary schools to close.

@ZeChocMoose Thank you for sharing the link. I have been comparing some of the hiring freeze claims of the schools listed on the blog post to the actual schools' human resources websites, and not all the schools are implementing hiring freezes.  For example, Pittsburgh was listed, but their website states that there is no hiring freeze (at least when I checked).  

I also want to share the news that I applied for a tenure track position in California the week before last week but I received an email on Monday that they have postponed the start date from September 2020 to September 2021. They did not cancel the position. 

I also want to share the good news that the day before yesterday, I received an email from a university in Michigan and they have invited me to an interview for a tenure track position. Unfortunately it is not a face-to-face interview due to Covid19. Instead, they are conducting it virtually. They asked for my telephone number and id for the virtual meeting. 

So, basically, by sharing this fresh news, I want to reiterate that there is some hope!!

Stay positive, folks...don't give up. Keep applying. I noticed tenure track positions were posted up until March 26, and hopefully they will continue to do so!!

[Faith786]

3 minutes ago, slouching said:

Worth reading: https://www.chronicle.com/article/The-Great-Recession-Was-Bad/248317?cid=wsinglestory_hp_1a.

Wow, thanks for posting. We are indeed watching history in the making!!

And yes, as the article points out, "As fixed-term and part-time teaching faculty numbers increase, the traditional paradigm of “all research faculty also teach” could change as they could spend more time doing research on an efficient basis."

I wonder what it would mean for tenure track faculty versus teaching track faculty versus adjunct sessional lecturers....how would they split the teaching load amongst these three categories?

The teaching track faculty seemed to carry more of the teaching burden than tenure track faculty, but then what does that mean for adjunct sessional lecturers???

[Faith786]

3 hours ago, Faith786 said:

@ZeChocMoose Thank you for sharing the link. I have been comparing some of the hiring freeze claims of the schools listed on the blog post to the actual schools' human resources websites, and not all the schools are implementing hiring freezes.  For example, Pittsburgh was listed, but their website states that there is no hiring freeze (at least when I checked).  

I also want to share the news that I applied for a tenure track position in California the week before last week but I received an email on Monday that they have postponed the start date from September 2020 to September 2021. They did not cancel the position. 

I also want to share the good news that the day before yesterday, I received an email from a university in Michigan and they have invited me to an interview for a tenure track position. Unfortunately it is not a face-to-face interview due to Covid19. Instead, they are conducting it virtually. They asked for my telephone number and id for the virtual meeting. 

So, basically, by sharing this fresh news, I want to reiterate that there is some hope!!

Stay positive, folks...don't give up. Keep applying. I noticed tenure track positions were posted up until March 26, and hopefully they will continue to do so!!

Hello everyone, I have more news...I just received an email for a tenure track position from South Carolina stating that the "Due to the COVID-19 crisis, we had to close our search [...] You were a very strong applicant and we would like to encourage you to apply again when we re-post this position, we hope as early as this fall.  Thank you for taking the time to apply. Stay well."

Hmm...not sure what to think of it. It's like good and bad news in one shot. 

[purplepepper]

@Faith786

Congrats on your interviews and thanks for sharing your news! It's a good sign to see that positions are being postponed and not cancelled altogether.

Out of curiosity, are you in the sciences? I'm pretty sure most humanities searches are in the low season now, so I was just wondering what fields hire around this time of the year.

I was taking a look at the list of hiring freezes The Professor Is In posted. It is indeed confusing. Although she does claim that the listings are unverified, it's really hard to tell what exactly these freezes mean and how long they will last. Then I realized that list really isn't helpful for anything except stoking anxiety.....

 

[Faith786]

On 4/5/2020 at 9:05 PM, purplepepper said:

@Faith786

Congrats on your interviews and thanks for sharing your news! It's a good sign to see that positions are being postponed and not cancelled altogether.

Out of curiosity, are you in the sciences? I'm pretty sure most humanities searches are in the low season now, so I was just wondering what fields hire around this time of the year.

I was taking a look at the list of hiring freezes The Professor Is In posted. It is indeed confusing. Although she does claim that the listings are unverified, it's really hard to tell what exactly these freezes mean and how long they will last. Then I realized that list really isn't helpful for anything except stoking anxiety.....

 

Hello, 

Thank you for your comments. 

You ask a great question.

Yes, I am in the sciences. 

Are you in the humanities? 

If it was not for Covid19, I really think I would have had a job offer by now...

But maybe I will still get an offer soon, who knows? Let's think positively !!!

Not knowing what will happen also elicits a lot of anxiety, I guess?!!

[ZeChocMoose]

On 4/2/2020 at 9:00 AM, Faith786 said:

@purplepepper Hey, thanks for the comment. 

I think I can ease some of the worry...I do not think tenured faculty members would be laid off. Tenured faculty members have achieved one of the hardest things in academia, namely tenure, they are on the path to a permanent life-time job. They have proved their track record for service, teaching, and research.  It would be more conceivable that non-tenured, adjunct members might be laid off, because there is no job guarantee for them and they live contract-to-contract, and they have not had the service, teaching, and research contributions to the same extent that a tenure-track or tenured faculty member have had.  

The universities would be embroiled in litigation if tenured faculty members were ever to be laid off...

But then again, the adjuncts are doing the majority of teaching, at low pay, which is efficient for the university...so who knows how this will play out. 

 

Not to add to anyone's anxiety but tenured faculty can be laid off if the university declares a financial exigency.  It is not very common though, but it does happen from time to time and the college/university usually gets rid of programs/majors with low enrollments and then lays off all those faculty - tenured or not.  Sometimes universities try to have tenured faculty absorbed by another dept/program, but it is not always possible.  Due to COVID-19 and the financial strain that some schools are under, my guess is we might see that happen to a small number of colleges/universities -or- the entire school will close and then everyone will get laid off.

Just recently, St Cloud State has laid off 8 tenured faculty members at the start of Fall 2019 because of financial issues (https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2019/09/19/tenured-faculty-laid-st-cloud-state).  I am pretty sure that the faculty members who were laid off are trying to fight it or hope it doesn't come to this, but the decision was decided before the COVID-19 situation so an 11th hour save might not be possible.

I do agree that contingent faculty will be harder hit by the COVID-19 situation in general though.   This is going to be a really difficult year ahead for university hiring and budgets.

On 4/2/2020 at 12:43 PM, Faith786 said:

Hello everyone, I have more news...I just received an email for a tenure track position from South Carolina stating that the "Due to the COVID-19 crisis, we had to close our search [...] You were a very strong applicant and we would like to encourage you to apply again when we re-post this position, we hope as early as this fall.  Thank you for taking the time to apply. Stay well."

Hmm...not sure what to think of it. It's like good and bad news in one shot. 

They might be trying to buy some time to figure out what Fall enrollments look like and how long the COVID-19 situation will last.  It is definitely a bummer though and I hope you find something soon.

[Faith786]

On 4/17/2020 at 5:56 PM, ZeChocMoose said:

Not to add to anyone's anxiety but tenured faculty can be laid off if the university declares a financial exigency.  It is not very common though, but it does happen from time to time and the college/university usually gets rid of programs/majors with low enrollments and then lays off all those faculty - tenured or not.  Sometimes universities try to have tenured faculty absorbed by another dept/program, but it is not always possible.  Due to COVID-19 and the financial strain that some schools are under, my guess is we might see that happen to a small number of colleges/universities -or- the entire school will close and then everyone will get laid off.

Just recently, St Cloud State has laid off 8 tenured faculty members at the start of Fall 2019 because of financial issues (https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2019/09/19/tenured-faculty-laid-st-cloud-state).  I am pretty sure that the faculty members who were laid off are trying to fight it or hope it doesn't come to this, but the decision was decided before the COVID-19 situation so an 11th hour save might not be possible.

I do agree that contingent faculty will be harder hit by the COVID-19 situation in general though.   This is going to be a really difficult year ahead for university hiring and budgets.

They might be trying to buy some time to figure out what Fall enrollments look like and how long the COVID-19 situation will last.  It is definitely a bummer though and I hope you find something soon.

Thank you for posting this news. As horrible and sad as it is to lay off tenure track faculty, I hate to say that I am not too surprised, as it was in the humanities at a not-so-popular school.  The humanities have been quite a precarious academic field...humanities phds tend to have the worst tenure-track employment rates in academia, and now seeing this article makes me think that the precarity seems to continue even after achieving tenure-track and/or tenure in the humanities. 

St. Cloud State does not seem to be one of the distinct universities, with respect to research, and I imagine tenured and tenure track positions, even in the humanities, would be "safe" at R1 and/or R2 schools, although frozen endowments have warranted hiring freezes for new tenure track jobs at some of those schools.  

I am surprised to see that positions continue to being posted in the field of social sciences at decent schools, so I might stay in a positive mind-set, although it may not be warranted...things might go south. 

[Guest joshw4288]

Lot of hiring freezes, reneging of offers/contracts, furloughs, salary reductions, and I've heard of at least one SLAC closing up shop. 

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1KohP4xZdN8BZy1OMeXCAGagswvUOWpOws72eDKpBhI4/edit

If you aren't worried and thinking about non-academic alternatives, you should be. 

 

[Sigaba]

7 minutes ago, joshw4288 said:

If you aren't worried and thinking about non-academic alternatives, you should be. 

^ This last part could have been phrased a bit more tactfully, IMO.

[Guest joshw4288]

6 minutes ago, Sigaba said:

^ This last part could have been phrased a bit more tactfully, IMO.

If that's what you got out of the post, you should reread, IMO. Feel free to rephrase to your hearts desire but I'm uninterested in the self-righteous tone police. 

[Sigaba]

1 minute ago, joshw4288 said:

If that's what you got out of the post, you should reread, IMO. Feel free to rephrase to your hearts desire but I'm uninterested in the self-righteous tone police. 

That you replied at all suggests otherwise.

[purplepepper]

I think we are now all aware of that google doc, and have been bombarded in facebook feeds and otherwise with news of hiring freezes and furloughs. It would be nice if the thread can at least stay positive (any success in the market or ideas on how to move past it?) instead of being another forum for alarmism and fear mongering--there are just too many of those, no matter how "right" it might be. 

[PthenT]

Let it be heard, I remain positive for the future of academic AND other careers, even if it does take a bit of time to get back to normal (hopefully even better - but that's a push)