Links for 2011-02-02

  • “Is academic hiring meritocratic? The author of this piece assumes that it is. As someone whose job it is to actually hire faculty, I can attest that merit is only a small part of the picture.

    The single most important part of the picture is the existence of a position at all. In this funding climate, we can only afford to staff a few of the positions (whether faculty, staff, or administration) that we need. If the position doesn’t exist, then the relative merit of the prospective candidates means exactly zero.

    That may seem obvious, but it gets blithely ignored in the piece. Posted tenure-track faculty positions were down by double digits in most disciplines last year. Does that mean the merit of the candidate pool went down by double digits? Um, no.”