Reputation Real Talk

[Appppplication]

Yes @greenmt I would absolutely like to see some more info. We have such limited data, although we seem to have many first-person experiences on blogs, websites, etc. about the situation. 

 

I think the issue that I, and I'm sure others, worry about is whether these potential positions will be filled by tenure track faculty or by adjuncts. 

[greenmt]

OK.  Thanks for the feedback.  I'm gonna keep plugging along on it.  I'm not really trying to prove a point, and I hope that is keeping me from being Pollyana-ish.  I just want to see if it's possible to have a reasonable picture of the job market five or seven years from now, instead of five years ago.  One of the things I've seen, in the MLA's annual report on its job-board listings, is that during times of greater hiring (flat-out more ads listed), the proportion of tenure-track hires starts to increase.  The tenure v. non-tenure breakdown also seems to vary by location (bad in the northeast and the west coast, better in less populated regions), which might indicate a glut in those areas, or might just indicate a ballooning number of undergrads needing their 3 credits of English to graduate. (Or something else, of course.)  The breakdown also seems to vary by subject area, with some (e.g. non-European / non-American Lit) more likely to be hired on tenure lines, though in smaller numbers, of course.  

 

I get it re: the teacher lack --> glut.  My wife got an MA to Teacher's College and taught in the NYC schools for a bit, and we saw some of the effects of the frenzy to get warm bodies into the classroom.  I think the difference here is that no one with less than a MA is likely to ever teach in a postsecondary setting (except maybe a professional writer in a writing program), and as we all know, there are already many underemployed PhDs.  It would be nice to see some of those folks jump into the tenured world.