Comments on: Much Love to This Year’s Job Hunters http://www.nathangilmour.com/hardly/2009/09/muchlov/ Wed, 01 Dec 2010 15:48:06 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: ngilmour http://www.nathangilmour.com/hardly/2009/09/muchlov/comment-page-1/#comment-4910 ngilmour Fri, 04 Sep 2009 22:11:41 +0000 http://www.nathangilmour.com/hardly/?p=3049#comment-4910 Phil, You're right, and Bousquet has been hammering on that bell for quite some time now. You ought to check his blog out--it's some good, cathartic angry blogging. Phil,

You’re right, and Bousquet has been hammering on that bell for quite some time now. You ought to check his blog out–it’s some good, cathartic angry blogging.

]]> By: phil rutledge http://www.nathangilmour.com/hardly/2009/09/muchlov/comment-page-1/#comment-4906 phil rutledge Fri, 04 Sep 2009 15:35:17 +0000 http://www.nathangilmour.com/hardly/?p=3049#comment-4906 My response to the "excess Phd" claim is this, the neo-liberal hiring practices are to blame. What I mean by a "neo-liberal hiring practices" is that you have an abundance of part-time faculty (many with PhD.s) at many institutions. You hire multiple part-time instructors instead of one full-time professor. In many ways college professors are the new migrant worker. You have so many teaching at part-time at 2 or 3 institutions. Kinda hard to get tenure roaming from place to place. So yeah I think that it is closer to outright duplicity. My response to the “excess Phd” claim is this, the neo-liberal hiring practices are to blame. What I mean by a “neo-liberal hiring practices” is that you have an abundance of part-time faculty (many with PhD.s) at many institutions. You hire multiple part-time instructors instead of one full-time professor. In many ways college professors are the new migrant worker. You have so many teaching at part-time at 2 or 3 institutions. Kinda hard to get tenure roaming from place to place. So yeah I think that it is closer to outright duplicity.

]]> By: ngilmour http://www.nathangilmour.com/hardly/2009/09/muchlov/comment-page-1/#comment-4870 ngilmour Tue, 01 Sep 2009 15:11:25 +0000 http://www.nathangilmour.com/hardly/?p=3049#comment-4870 Preach it, Rich! (Sorry. The joke was there. I was too weak to turn away.) I think Bousqet's point is (and you hit this in your second comment) that folks have good reason to fear but that the hand-wringing at the top is at best bad-faith excuse-making and at worst outright duplicity. As he notes in the little snippet I posted, some shifts in hiring practices could give the lie to the "excess Ph.D" claim in a hurry. But that, I think, would take some larger cultural and political commitments to education as something at comparable in importance to military empire. Preach it, Rich! (Sorry. The joke was there. I was too weak to turn away.)

I think Bousqet’s point is (and you hit this in your second comment) that folks have good reason to fear but that the hand-wringing at the top is at best bad-faith excuse-making and at worst outright duplicity. As he notes in the little snippet I posted, some shifts in hiring practices could give the lie to the “excess Ph.D” claim in a hurry. But that, I think, would take some larger cultural and political commitments to education as something at comparable in importance to military empire.

]]> By: Rich http://www.nathangilmour.com/hardly/2009/09/muchlov/comment-page-1/#comment-4869 Rich Tue, 01 Sep 2009 14:14:53 +0000 http://www.nathangilmour.com/hardly/?p=3049#comment-4869 Oh and one more thing. Folks with D.Min degrees - a really superfluous, non-academic, revenue-generating degree for theological institutions - are getting jobs as professors in theological education ahead of qualified PhD's (similar to the BA's and Master's degree profs on the university level), perpetuating the stigma of the practical theological fields as not the "real work" of academic theology. Hogwash! Ok, my rant ends here. Oh and one more thing. Folks with D.Min degrees – a really superfluous, non-academic, revenue-generating degree for theological institutions – are getting jobs as professors in theological education ahead of qualified PhD’s (similar to the BA’s and Master’s degree profs on the university level), perpetuating the stigma of the practical theological fields as not the “real work” of academic theology. Hogwash! Ok, my rant ends here.

]]> By: Rich http://www.nathangilmour.com/hardly/2009/09/muchlov/comment-page-1/#comment-4868 Rich Tue, 01 Sep 2009 13:55:46 +0000 http://www.nathangilmour.com/hardly/?p=3049#comment-4868 Count me in as one who has bought into the fear-mongering on this one. Mostly because it is actually true in my field, though it may not be on the wider university and college level. As seminary budgets shrink, so does the priority for new hires in homiletics. Faculty searches are being suspended. As the economy continues to falter, more tenured profs are holding onto their positions in the hopes that their retirement accounts will rebound. Ten years ago was supposed to be the beginning of a mass exodus for retirees in the practical theological fields. It hasn't happened and unfortunately for me, it's at the wrong time. Count me in as one who has bought into the fear-mongering on this one. Mostly because it is actually true in my field, though it may not be on the wider university and college level. As seminary budgets shrink, so does the priority for new hires in homiletics. Faculty searches are being suspended. As the economy continues to falter, more tenured profs are holding onto their positions in the hopes that their retirement accounts will rebound. Ten years ago was supposed to be the beginning of a mass exodus for retirees in the practical theological fields. It hasn’t happened and unfortunately for me, it’s at the wrong time.

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