FAQs: How to Interpret Non-Traditional Quit Lit
Part 4: What the fuck is going on with you anyway?
You have questions. Some of you anyway. This post, then, is an attempt to answer some of them and keep my quit lit story from veering into some of the flights of fancy that speculation (and, frankly, an obnoxious amount of assumption) have inspired. Below, you will find FAQs — one set for those of you who work in academia and one set for those of you who do not.
Frequently asked questions for academics.
Q: Holy shit, are you okay?
A: Yeah (lots of loaded shrugging), I’m good.
Q: So this is a big deal, huh?
A: Right?!
Q. So you are leaving because of racism?
A: I wish you wouldn’t be so reductive. Part 2 was an attempt to establish context, not assign blame. The fact is, I took a job in Lynchburg, VA (which is anchored by Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University) at the beginning of an enormously challenging political moment. There are some wonderful things about Lynchburg and the community I have made here, as well as some hard realities that cannot be ignored. These things matter. They have consequences, particularly given my identity and my family composition. Sadly, I don’t think that there is a high degree of awareness or understanding of just how challenging this can be for someone in my position on the part of many of my colleagues. I struggle with defining my own role in their education or enlightenment — my own culpability in feeling silenced, responsibility for other people’s journeys, the risk of tokenizing myself, and where to draw the lines between all of these evolving dynamics.
Q: Should I be saying “congratulations” or “I’m sorry”
A: I fucking love that you asked that question. Today is Wednesday, so I’ll go with congratulations. Thank you!
Q: So, What’s Next?
A: “To believe that will has power over potentiality, that the passage to actuality is the result of a decision that puts an end to the ambiguity of potentiality (which is always potentiality to do and not to do) — this is the perpetual illusion of morality,” and I would add, of progress and success.
― Giorgio Agamben, Potentialities: Collected Essays in Philosophy
Frequently asked questions for non-academics.
Q: Holy shit, are you okay?
A: Let’s get some things out of the way. I am fine, I am not having a breakdown, I am not in need of immediate help, and (contrary to conventional wisdom) sincere public expressions of emotion are not by definition a “cry for help” or a sign of weakness. Why, yes. That is a bit of hostility you detect. Check yourself.
It’s important for you to understand that, for a young professor (yes, I am young in professor years) on the tenure track, a change like this isn’t just “switching jobs.” It is more akin to “switching lives.”
I’ll try to break it down.
Before we start talking about the specifics of my job, you should consider what it took for me to even be in the position to apply for this job — namely, a terminal degree in my field. I started college as an undergraduate in the fall of 1995 and defended my doctoral dissertation in the spring of 2014. That means I dedicated nearly 20 of what are generally considered to be “the best years of my life” to educating myself so that I could consider this career path. I wasn’t in school for ALL of those years, but most of them. I did not receive financial assistance from my family for any of my four college degrees, so I have worked hard, hustled, pulled double and triple duty, and made sure I was in the position to earn scholarships and fellowships where I could. This is not a humblebrag. I am a boss bitch. And still…this boss bitch has six figures worth of college loans to repay.
Once I had the degrees, I entered “the market” for a tenure track position. I explain what this means to some degree below. For now, know that comparisons to the Hunger Games abound. There are fewer and fewer full-time tenure track jobs for a growing population of new PhDs. That I found my way to a tenure track position at a SLAC (small liberal arts college) that is a perfect fit for me not only put me in the statistical minority, it was damn near a miracle.
Once I had the job, I turned my attention to getting tenure. Again, I don’t really have the time to explain all the intricacies of tenure. Just know it’s a great big fucking deal and everyone wants it. When you start a tenure track job, your “tenure clock” starts. This means you generally have 5–7 years to prove that you are worthy of being granted tenure by your institution. Worthiness is usually achieved through some combination of publishing original scholarly research in peer-reviewed publications (as we say, “publish or perish”), demonstrating excellence in teaching and advising (you know those evaluations that you thought nobody read?), and engaging in service to the institution and/or community (committee work, philanthropy, etc.).
So…some takeaways:
- If you manage to get a tenure track job and you are miraculously very close to finally going up for tenure, you have a LOT invested — decades of hard work, a small fortune in student loan debt, and (to no small degree) your identity and sense of purpose in the world.
- When you take a tenure track job, it is assumed it is for the long haul. Even switching from one tenure track job to another could have serious consequences — as you may see your tenure clock reset.
- Academic hiring is more like a marriage than I like to admit and the relationships you build with your colleagues and your department can be incredibly meaningful. This also means that parting, even amicably, is very much akin to a divorce.
Hence…emotions.
Q: So this is a big deal, huh?
A: Great golly, yes! And here’s the thing…the timing is really significant.
Professional football is actually an incredible analog for hiring in the professoriate. A young man, more than likely, has to invest the majority of his life putting himself in the position to be considered for a spot on an NFL roster. Let’s say he does all the “right” things — summers filled with skill camps all through grade school, a scholarship to a big-name university football program, no embarrassing missteps or arrests, and a very respectable highlight reel. As wonderful as this young man is, he cannot simply move to the major city of his choice, knock on the door of the local NFL franchise, and say, “Hi my name is Bob and I would like to play for you!”
If an academic were to up and move to a city of their choosing and “send their resume” to the local colleges and universities, they would be received just as well as Bob would and would produce similarly ineffective results. It’s just not how it works. Bob (we’re calling him Bob now) needs to enter the NFL draft. New Ph.D.s and experienced professors have their own version of this process, we call this “putting yourself on the market.”
In the NFL, a draft combine puts all the top players in the same place at the same time so that franchisees can do high volume evaluation before making costly decisions that may impact the future of their organizations in the draft. In academia, most fields (especially in the humanities and social sciences) have annual conferences and meetings where departments with openings can conduct a high volume of preliminary interviews with those lucky enough to secure them. After all, a tenure track hire (like drafting Bob), is a long-term commitment that, for better or for worse, will have a material impact on the future of an academic department and institution.
The NFL draft always occurs at the same time each year. It is timed with the regular season, training camp, free agency, and more, so it doesn’t make sense to have it any other time. And though there are some other pathways into the league, this is overwhelmingly the route that young players take. Those who find other avenues into the league are a bit like lottery winners.
Similarly, the academic job market has a rigid timeline. Academic job postings for the 2020–2021 academic year (yes, jobs that start more than a year from now) are just starting to trickle out and will (more or less) all be posted by the end of October. Applicants will submit their dossiers (not a resume, but a 30- to 60-page collection of materials that have to be personalized for each job) for these open positions during the fall months. Many of them will be doing this while also teaching classes and attempting to finish their doctoral dissertations. If you know one of these people, be kind to them. Search committees at each hiring institution will review mountains of submitted materials (more than a hundred and sometimes multiple hundreds of people will apply for each of these open jobs), interview a “short-list” of potential candidates at an aforementioned conference or by Skype or phone, select 3–4 “finalists” to visit their campuses for on-site interviews (that usually take two days per candidate), and then finally extend offers and enter negotiations. This process takes months to complete and generally, in the spring, everyone will know where they will be the following fall. Most new Ph.D.s (like most college football players) will not find tenure-track jobs immediately. And like going undrafted in the NFL, if you do not find a tenure track position early, the road to finding one in the future is exponentially harder.
NFL teams don’t always choose the “best player available” when it’s their turn to select from the pool of available players. Rather, they select for need and fit. If a team has a talented young quarterback already on its roster, there’s no reason to draft another quarterback just because he’s the best player available on the draft board. And even if a given team needs a defensive lineman and the best player available happens to be a defensive lineman, that team still has to make sure he’s a good fit for their defensive scheme. Did he play in a 4–3 or a 3–4 in college? He’s an incredible pass rusher, but we need someone who can stop the run. A less talented defensive lineman on paper may be a better fit for the organization and get the call over poor Bob.
Similarly, academic departments also hire for need and fit. Just because XYZ University has an opening in their Communication Studies department, it doesn’t mean that every Communication Studies Ph.D. is a possible fit for the job. A department that already has strength in organizational comm or rhetoric or cinema studies doesn’t need to hire someone else with specializations in those areas...even if they are super smart and talented.
Moreover, academic departments (like NFL franchises) have “cultures,” policies, institutional structures, and expectations. The academic hiring process is about evaluating whether or not a new Ph.D. is a good fit for the culture and whether they are likely to thrive for years to come — whether they are likely to offer a good return on investment. And of course the NFL draft is just for new players, football teams also have the option to meet their needs via free agency. So too are new Ph.D.s increasingly competing against “veteran” academics who are looking to make lateral moves or negotiate better deals.
So…here’s why the timing of my announcement is a big deal.
Those who know how “the market” works, immediately recognized that the hiring season for this coming academic year is well over and the one for 2020–2021 is just getting started. They immediately came to the conclusion that I do not have another job (at least another job in the professoriate) lined up. And that I am jumping from a perch that it took an enormous amount of time, energy, and money to scale…with no parachute.
So, yeah…big deal.
Q. So you are leaving because of racism?
A: Not exactly, but I’m a queer, black woman in a same-sex, interracial marriage with a biracial kid. I’m open-minded but committed to social justice. Central Virginia MAGA-country is just a tough place to be. I worry about my wife and kid a lot…a lot. My college has been a really nurturing “bubble” for me. But my wife and kid aren’t always in the bubble with me. Plus…the bubble is small AF and kinda boring.
Q: Should I be saying “congratulations” or “I’m sorry?”
A: I fucking love that you just immediately started congratulating me. Thank you for reminding me that, in the real world, the fact that I’m a boss bitch will get me somewhere. HIGH FIVE!
Q: What’s Next?
A: You are just going to have to wait for Part 5, my friend.
