New job market realities: Are we ready?

The years went by, and nothing that I witnessed could have suggested that my optimistic vision for life after grad school was distorted. Students found employment in the best schools, and interest in Middle Eastern studies was on a steady rise after Sept. 11, 2001. Having precepted, published articles in peer-reviewed journals and written the greater part of my dissertation, I was sure I had it all going for me.

And then, as Anthony Grafton noted in his March 2 column for The ‘Prince,’ “the floor beneath us … collapsed.” As it happened while I was in the process of sending out job applications, I wasn’t encouraged to hear that it had happened before (in the 1970s, according to Grafton). All I cared about was that I, who came from such a prestigious program, could not find a job. But then I realized that I wasn’t the only one and that about half the positions I applied to were canceled. I soon discovered that many of my friends and I were playing the game by the rules, yet the rules had changed. We were now facing, according to Grafton, “new realities.”

Since Grafton called for thinking “hard about our graduate programs and their relations to these new realities,” here is a suggestion to get the process going. The first thing our professors must understand is that different factors now determine whether a job candidate is attractive to search committees. While having studied in the most prestigious program is surely advantageous, it probably doesn’t top the list of desired qualifications any more. What does, then? When all things are equal, there are two factors that can probably tilt the balance toward a job candidate: real teaching experience (not precepting) and having the Ph.D. in hand.

The requirement to have real teaching experience is currently the most difficult to attain. The University, per its policy to limit designing and leading courses to professors, actually reduces the competitiveness of its graduate students in the job market. When a search committee decides to hire someone who hasn’t completed his or her Ph.D., it is more likely to select a Stanford or University of Chicago graduate who has had the chance to teach a course or two over the Princeton candidate who precepted once or twice.

The University therefore has to change its approach. The promise to undergraduates that they will only be taught by professors makes no sense at a school that is also committed to training future academics. Allowing fifth- or sixth-year grad students to design and teach their own classes, with the supervision of faculty members, will better prepare graduate students for the careers they want and increase their chances of getting them. It will also benefit the University by saving it the cost of hiring visiting professors.

Providing grad students with real teaching experience might increase the average time students spend in grad school. Yet that average passed the four or five years defined for programs across campus a long time ago. Princeton has recognized this by introducing Dissertation Completion Enrollment (DCE) status, but even DCE students rarely have the chance to acquire the necessary teaching experience. Thus, those who remain on campus for an extra year for lack of employment gain no advantage beyond the meager subsistence precepting provides. Going on the job market the following year, they will still not have the kind of teaching experience search committees are looking for on their CVs, and they will not have their Ph.D.s in hand. They will have simply wasted a year. Instead, the University should create the opportunity for a number of grad students to remain on campus after defending their dissertation as part-time lecturers.

Ignoring the “new realities” of the job market will inevitably lead many Princeton grads to spend the first couple years after graduation in part-time positions in obscure colleges, without healthcare or other benefits, earning less money than they did as graduate students. To prevent such an unfortunate outcome, professors ought to advocate the changes proposed above, and many others, to the University administration. Princeton has always been a pioneer in introducing policies that put it ahead of its peer institutions. It’s time to do that again.

Yaron Ayalon is a graduate student in the Near Eastern studies department. He can be reached at yayalon@princeton.edu.