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Salvatore Florio, currently reader in philosophy at the University of Birmingham, will be moving to the University of Oslo, where he will be associate professor of philosophy.
Professor Florio specializes in philosophy of language, philosophical logic, and philosophy of mathematics. He is the author, with Øystein Linnebo (Oslo), of The Many and the One: A Philosophical Study of Plural Logic (OUP, 2021), along with other works, which you can learn about here and here. He also serves as Coordinating Editor of The Review of Symbolic Logic.
In addition to his position at Birmingham, he is also a professorial fellow at Oslo. He takes up his new position at Oslo in September, 2023.
The post Florio from Birmingham to Oslo first appeared on Daily Nous.
It's been a number of years since this blog has had any new series on job-market tips, such as our Job-Market Boot Camp and Notes from both sides of the market series. Given that these past series mostly involved me and other authors sharing our impressions on various job market materials, interviews, etc., they didn't necessarily provide a representative picture of how different search committee members at different types of institutions see these things.
So, in this new series, Tips from Search Committee Members, I'd like to rectify this. In today's post, I'd like to ask search committee members to answer some or all of the following questions:
Finally, if there are any other questions you think are worth addressing not listed here, please feel free to volunteer and answer them. Really curious to hear your answers!
Alastair Wilson, currently Professor of Philosophy at the University of Birmingham, has accepted a position as Professor of Philosophy at the University of Leeds.
Professor Wilson’s research is in philosophy of physics, metaphysics, philosophy of science, and epistemology. He is the author of The Nature of Contingency: Quantum Physics as Modal Realism (Oxford University Press, 2020), among many other works, which you can learn about here and here. You can read an interview with him here.
He takes up his new position at Leeds in September, 2023.
The post Wilson from Birmingham to Leeds first appeared on Daily Nous.
Simon Kirchin, currently Professor of Philosophy at the University of Kent, will be moving to the University of Leeds, where he will be Professor of Applied Ethics and Director of the Inter-disciplinary Applied Ethics (IDEA) Centre.
Professor Kirchin works in ethics, and is the author of Thick Evaluation (Oxford University Press, 2017; open access), among other works, which you can check out here and here.
He takes up his new position at Leeds in January, 2024.
The post Kirchin from Kent to Leeds first appeared on Daily Nous.
Utrecht University has hired 11 new philosophers.
They have each been hired as “Universitair Docent,” which is a permanent position, pending a standard one-year probationary period.
(The following information has been supplied by Daniel Cohnitz, head of the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies at Utrecht.)
Uğur Aytaç will be appointed in the Ethics Institute as universitair docent for Political Philosophy of Technology in September 2023. He will be a PPE Core Teacher.
Marie Chabbert will join the History of Philosophy group as universitair docent for History of Modern Philosophy.
Sanneke de Haan will be appointed in the Ethics Institute as universitair docent for Ethics, starting September, 2023, while continuing her 0.2 FTE appointment as Socrates Professor of Psychiatry and Philosophy at the Erasmus School of Philosophy & Erasmus Medical Centre, Rotterdam (funded by the Stichting Psychiatrie en Filosofie).
Jamie Draper was appointed in 2022 and will take up a position at the Ethics Institute as universitair docent for Political Philosophy and Environmental Ethics, starting September 2023.
Chiara Lisciandra will be appointed in the Theoretical Philosophy group as universitair docent for Practical Reasoning, starting September 2023.
Uwe Peters will be appointed jointly in the Theoretical Philosophy group and the Ethics Institute as universitair docent for Philosophy of Artificial Intelligence, starting October, 2023.
Carina Prunkl will be appointed in the Ethics Institute as universitair docent for Ethics of Technology, December 2023.
Janis Schaab will be appointed in the Ethics Institute as universitair docent for Moral, Political, and Social Philosophy, starting September 2023.
Emily Sullivan will be appointed in in the Theoretical Philosophy group as universitair docent for Philosophy of Science.
Juri Viehoff will be appointed in the Ethics Institute as universitair docent for Philosophy, Politics, and Economics, September 2023. He will be a PPE Core Teacher.
Sarah Virgi will be appointed jointly in the department’s History of Philosophy group and in Islam and Arabic Studies as universitair docent for Islamic Philosophy.
You can learn more about philosophy at Utrecht here.
The post Utrecht Hires 11 New Philosophers first appeared on Daily Nous.
UPDATE: To clarify, this post is soliciting self-reports from people who have been on the market recently (e.g., in the past few years), particularly this last job season. Because job-market conditions may change over time, recent data is probably the most helpful for current and future job candidates.
A reader writes in:
Something that I think would be very beneficial, and a necessary supplement to the job discussion and reporting thread, is an anonymous survey that those on the market fill-out and whose results get posted on the Cocoon ... It would indicate the profile and results in terms of interviews and offers of each candidate willing to fill it out. Maybe it need not even be a survey. In fact, maybe it would work better if you simply could post something like the below template in a post, and encourage folks to fill it out. I am suggesting this partly in response to my having a crappy year on the market (got nothing) despite my CV being the strongest it has ever been. Getting any information I can about what the profile of someone who is having success looks like would be really beneficial to me, as well as to others who I see lamenting their crappy year in the reporting and discussion threads.
It would look something like this:
[Also] questions about where one's interviews were coming from (R1, SLAC, State School, Postdoc). That would probably be useful too.
I'm not entirely sure how useful such information would be, as there will presumably be many selection effects based on who chooses to self-report. Still, insofar as some candidates (such as the OP) may need to make important life decisions about whether to stay on the market, and if so for how long, some candidates might find this kind of self-reported data useful for gauging how they stand relative to others on the market, how much luck is involved on the market, and so on.
So, if you were on the market this year, and you'd like to self-report on any or all of the above, please do feel free.
A couple of important notes: (A) while I doubt that many people will be scouring a thread like this trying to figure out "who is who", readers should probably bear in mind that, at least in principle, the more info that they report, the greater the possibility of people figuring out who they are; and (B) I'd like to reserve this thread for reporting, not discussion--so I'll only be approving comments that self-report data like that above.
Kenny Easwaran, who until recently was professor in the Department of Philosophy at Texas A&M University, has accepted a position as associate professor in the Department of Logic and Philosophy of Science at the University of California, Irvine.
Professor Easwaran works in epistemology, decision theory, and philosophy of math, and related areas. You can learn more about his research here and here.
He takes up his new position at Irvine this summer.
The post Easwaran from Texas A&M to UC Irvine first appeared on Daily Nous.
UPDATE: comments now open!
A reader writes in:
My area of specialization is political philosophy and I have seen philosophers who work on and publish in analytic philosophy journals in the politics or political science departments of different universities. Do any cocooner’s have any insights on how they were able to tailor their job applications to work not just for jobs in philosophy but jobs in politics departments?
Good question! Do any readers have any helpful tips?
In our newest "how can we help you?" thread, a reader asks:
Here’s a follow-up question to our recent discussions of perception, personal politics, and the job market:
Let’s say I work on a historical philosophical subject that is not evidently political (even though I secretly think it is), and that I also teach philosophy of religion semi-regularly. Let’s say I’m also a member (non-TT) of a department that has issued pro-BLM and pro-Roe-v.-Wade statements with which I wholeheartedly agree. If I link to those statements on my personal website, how would that be perceived? Again, my support is genuine, but I also hope to show search committee members where I stand in a politically ambiguous subfield.
Interesting question. For those of you new to the discussion being referred to, a number of people indicated here that they have a bias against people who work in philosophy of religion.
Bearing this in mind, what do you all think? Should someone like the OP (above) try to broadcast their progressive political views to combat any such bias?
In our newest "how can we help you?" thread, a new prof asks:
I finally got a TT job! What can I do over the next few months to set myself up for success in the fall?
Big congrats, and great question! I think a lot may depend on what kind of job it is. If it's a job with a low teaching load at an R1, then I'm not sure. If, on the other hand, it's a job with a pretty hefty teaching load, then I'd suggest trying to get a lot of research done and a few papers out to journals this summer. In jobs with a lot of teaching (especially your first year), you might find that you have very little time to focus on research, and if you don't have papers out at journals, you might begin to worry about "falling behind." Other than this, I guess I'd suggest asking new colleagues if they have syllabi that they are willing to share, as this might give you some idea what the norms around teaching are at the institution. Then again, it's been a long time since I started my first job, so I'm probably missing obvious tips that might help the OP.
What do you all think? Any tips for someone about to start a new job in the fall that will help them set themselves up for success?
In our March "how can we help you?" thread, a reader asks:
I have a question about the job market. Recently on Twitter, I have seen quite a few people posting about either permanent jobs or good postdocs they have secured. However, when I then check out their CV, I am surprised to see that it doesn't align with what I have previously been told/seen about getting permanent jobs/postdocs. To give an example for each, I saw someone getting a permanent job when they had only a few publications, only one of which was a top ten (Leiter) and not top five, and the others were co-authored or lower tier journals. For the postdoc, I saw someone getting a good postdoc with actually no publications as well. At my institution I had been told that you need about three top five publications to get a permanent job, which struck me as close to impossible short of you being a generational talent. And for a postdoc I had been told at least two decent publications minimum.
So, is this a sign for optimism in that if you interview well or are good in some other ways, you can escape the "publish or die" mantra that I've so much heard about?
I'm curious to hear what readers think. I suspect there may be differences in hiring for different kinds of positions (e.g. permanent jobs and postdocs at R1s vs. SLACs, etc.). At R1s, for example, grad program prestige, letters of recommendation, and writing samples may go a long way. Conversely, at SLACs, things other than publishing (such as teaching) matter a great deal. Indeed, having served on a number of search committees at a SLAC, my sense is that people on the hiring side of things can very much take "the whole picture" into account with candidates. Publications matter--but they are by no means the only thing that matters. Teaching matters a lot too. So do your research statement and writing sample--and more generally, how interesting and promising a committee finds your overall research project. And, of course, interviews affect the hiring process too. At schools like mine, people generally want to see evidence that you know how to publish and are likely to publish enough for tenure--so, above and beyond a few publications, more publications may not matter tremendously. Finally, it's worth bearing in mind many people only get permanent jobs after a number of years on the market. It took me over 7 years, for example--so, over a period of time like this, you don't have to be a generational talent to publish a bunch of papers.
Anyway, these are just my thoughts. What are yours?
In our newest "how can we help you?" thread, a reader asks:
Here's a question: can we have a thread in which recently *successful* job applicants who have gotten TT jobs describe their own application process?
In particular, I'm wondering about time spent on materials. How much time did you spend personalizing your cover letter, e.g., or preparing for the first-round interview? (I'm wondering whether I've been spending way too little time on these initial steps, myself.) Does the process that went into a successful application compare in any notable way to the many unsuccessful applications?
But really, any tips from those who have been recently--especially within the last job cycle or two--successful in landing TT jobs would be much appreciated.
I think this is a nice idea. Do any recent job candidates who have gotten tenure-track jobs have any tips or insights to share? How much time did you spend on various materials, and how did you develop them?
In our newest "how can we help you?" thread, a reader asks:
I have been approached by an editor who works for an academic book publisher (somewhere in the middle of ranked publishers from the blog of the guy who ranks everything) who wants to meet me at an upcoming conference we are both attending and discuss publishing the project I am working on (not dissertation project).
I was wondering two things:
1) What should I be asking/getting to know about this publisher in this meeting? I'm completely new to this process and have no clue what to even be asking this editor?
2) What are people's thoughts on middle of the road publishers? I imagine they would help my chances at a permanent job, am I wrong in that assumption?
I think this should be ok in my situation since I would like to work at a SLAC, but I'd love to know what others think?
Another reader submitted the following reply:
It sounds like you do not have a permanent position - if that is the case I think it is a bad idea to try to publish a book. I have published 3 monographs, and edited 2 volumes (and finishing a 3rd). These are long term projects that are quite unpredictable. My monographs and one of the volumes is with one of the top 2 publishers. It is unrealistic to try to complete a monograph while you are still actively on the job market. I completed my first ONLY with the help of a sabbatical - and it came out in print three years later. If you need a permanent position, then you need well placed articles in highly ranked journals.
I disagree, based on my experience both as a former job candidate and many-time search committee member at a SLAC.
First, as a job-candidate, my number of interviews and flyouts at SLACs skyrocketed my last two years on the market after I had a book under contract with Palgrave MacMillan (a mid-ranked publisher in the polls the OP refers to). Although there were other parts of my CV that had improved as well, it certainly seems like having the book under contract made a significant difference. Second, as a search committee member, it makes sense to me why. My sense is that one of the most difficult challenges that any job candidate faces is "standing out from the crowd." Something like 90+% of applicants for a job have a good enough publishing record at journals, good teaching reviews, pretty good dossier materials, etc. How is one supposed to choose? Well, if someone has a book coming out, that will stand out. Why? Because very few candidates do. It can also be attractive in that tenure and promotion committees at SLACs are likely to have people from other departments where books are the norm, not to mention administrators who books will look good to as well.
I do think there is some risk to pursuing a book while on the market. It's a ton of work, there's no guarantee the book will be accepted in the end, it could detract from other things (e.g. publishing in journals, teaching, etc.), and it may be difficult to do your very best work on it given all of the things you are balancing (and your time and resources, or lack thereof). Still, I think it can be a risk worth taking. But I'm curious to hear what other people, particularly those who have gotten books under contract or published them while on the market.
Finally, to address the OP's questions, I think mid-ranked publishers are just fine if you're looking for a job at a SLAC, and the main things you should figure out before meeting with a publisher is what kinds of books they publish and what their book proposal process is like (many publishers have specific proposal guidelines that you can download). The most important thing to do before meeting with a publisher, I think, is having a good pitch for a book project. They are going to ask you "what you're working on", but what they really mean by this is, "Pitch me a promising sounding book project." So, have that going in--and, if you're really committed to it, you might even sketch out something like a first draft of a book proposal (i.e. what each chapter will do). My sense is that the more you sound like you have a plan for the book (as opposed to merely a vague sense of what the book will be on), the more likely you will be to get them to invite you to submit a full proposal.
But these are just my thoughts. What are yours?
In our newest "how can we help you?" thread, a reader asks:
I guess I'm looking for general advice here, as much as that is possible.
A couple times on the market I've made it to the flyout round for an Assistant Prof post only to lose out to a *much* more senior candidate. I'm happy to get the flyout, and I'm also wondering if there is anything I can do to be more competitive against candidates that have much more experience than I. I'm one year out of grad school in a respectable post-doc, and I'm just not sure I can present myself in a way that compares favorably to those who have been assistant professors for 3-5 years.
Thoughts?
Good question, and I'm not sure what the answer is other than perhaps the obvious: keep publishing, improving as a teacher, etc. But of course I realize this isn't super helpful.
Anyone else have any more helpful advice or experiences to share, either from the job candidate or hiring side of things?
In our newest "how can we help you?" thread, a reader writes:
I've got two related questions:
1. In grad school I heard that moving from a cc to a university is basically impossible. Is that true? If not, what will making such a move require?
2. Is there a way to gauge from job listings, or by doing a bit of research, how big a role research plays at a particular teaching-focused institution? Does it vary widely? (I'd exclude SLACs here because I'm enrolled in the PSLF program.)
A bit of explanation: By the time I entered my last year of grad school, I felt confident that I wanted a career at a community college. I loved teaching and, while I love writing, I am less enthusiastic about academic writing. So I only applied to cc jobs and was lucky enough to land a job at a cc in a great city. The year that I earned tenure there I left (for a few good reasons) after taking another cc job across the country. The new job improves on the areas that were of concern at the old job, but I am deeply unhappy living here so I'm back on the job market. For the first time, I'm looking at university positions with interest because of the additional opportunities that creates. But I'm unsure whether a position at even a teaching-focused university would be a good fit for me because I don't know how big a role research plays there and whether such an institution would even consider me.
I've built up a very good CV in terms of service and teaching, but I don't know [1] how that would be valued by teaching-focused universities, [2] whether my complete lack of research since the dissertation would disqualify me even if I attempt to start publishing now, or [3] what it would look like to be in a position that has a research requirement (all the university job ads ask for a promising research agenda but I can't tell how much research is a part of each of those jobs).
I don't know if making such a move even makes sense for me, but that's in part because I actually know very little about what life would look like at a university. Whatever I can learn will help me take informed steps forward, and I figured that putting out this feeler is a good start.
Another reader submitted the following rather blunt take:
I worked for a number of years at a typical state college - almost all programs were 4 year BAs. When we ran searches we would not have touch a file like yours in a hundred years - (i) it suggests that you have no interest in research and there is no evidence you could meet the (rather low) requirements for tenure; and (ii) there are just so many other that might be just like you, but have a publication of two. So there would be no good reason to consider a file from a candidate who has not published.
I suspect this is probably true for tenure-track positions at 4-year universities, as even at teaching-focused universities research matters, and a complete lack of research since one's dissertation would (as this reader notes) make the OP uncompetitive against candidates who do have some research productivity. However, I am less sure about non-tenure-track "Teaching Assistant Professor" positions, which appear to be becoming increasingly common at many universities. In my experience, these positions can have few (or even no) research expectations, focusing instead on teaching and service. Yet, I also have reason to believe that even when it comes to these positions, some people think that at least some research activity is necessary to keep up with the field as a teacher. So, I'm not sure about those positions. I suspect that if the OP does want to move to at least a non-TT job like this at a university, they should try to take some steps to start publishing.
But these are just my thoughts. What do you all think?
Carlos Gray Santana, currently associate professor of philosophy at the University of Utah, will soon be associate professor of philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania.
Professor Santana works mainly in philosophy of science, with an emphasis on environmental science, as well as linguistics. You can learn more about his research here and here.
He takes up his new position at the University of Pennsylvania in July, 2023.
Related: “2019 Popper Prize Winner Announced”
In our newest "how can we help you?" thread, a reader asks:
My partner, a non-academic who has seen me suffer through the ups and downs of the market for a few years now, made what I thought to be an excellent observation this morning after we debriefed about another intense interview.
She noted that academic job interviewers (you, search committee member!) seem to expect perfection from their interviewees. She elaborated: 'In a lot of other jobs, you can slip-up in interviews, not say the perfect thing, and it's not like they won't hire you, because there is so much on the job learning, and they know that'. My immediate reaction to this was that she is absolutely right. It seems that philosophy search committee members in fact expect perfection in interviews, when that is just completely unrealistic. It also struck me that she was right to think academia does not encourage on the job learning of the sort implied by thoughts like: 'Well, they didn't show in the interview that they had that down, but that is ok, we can teach them; they'll learn'. Instead, we get: 'Well, they flubbed that question; they must be incompetent: they're out'.
Now to my questions: Are you expecting us to be perfect, because it feels that way? If so, why are you expecting perfection from us? And can you stop please? It is completely unrealistic, and just another instance of academic standards being utterly out-of-touch with how things ought humanely to go.
Interesting questions, and I'm curious to hear from readers. One reader submitted the following reply:
In the searches I have been involved with, we do not expect candidates to be perfect. In fact, usually, if the search has gone well, the department would be happy with hiring any of the finalists - even after their interviews. What the committee does is balance their needs with what each candidate has to offer. And small things can make a difference - because only one candidate can be offered the job. But perfection is not the standard.
This matches my experience in hiring. I don't think search committees expect perfection. Few (if any) interviews are perfect. When a candidate "knocks an interview out of the park", it can make a difference--but, even then, my experience is that committees tend to make decisions holistically, not just on interview performance but on the basis of the rest of their dossier. And, even when candidates don't give perfect interviews, they can still be at the top of a committee's list. We all recognize that people can flub a question or two, or even have a bad day interviewing. This is my experience, at any rate.
Are any other search committee members able and willing to weigh in? It might also be good to hear from job-candidates too, as when I was a job candidate sometimes I got flyouts after interviews that I thought went poorly, but didn't get flyouts for interviews that seemed to go well!
In our newest "how can we help you?" thread, a reader asks:
I plan to go on the job market for the first time this fall. What are some tips or things that you were not advised or warned about that you wished you were? Also, thinking about the number of documents that are needed is daunting. Does anyone have a sense of how long it takes to finish a research statement, dissertation abstract, and other documents, and/or have any tips on how to write these documents?
These are all good questions. The Cocoon's Job-Market Boot Camp gave a bunch of tips on how to compose various dossier materials, but it would be great to hear some answers about them from readers, and especially on the question, "What are some tips or things that you were not advised or warned about that you wished you were?"
A reader writes in:
I have been on the job market for a few years and am seriously looking into quitting the profession this year. The alternative is that I hold out for another year or two in a visiting position. I'd appreciate hearing your readers' thoughts on whether the job market is likely to improve in the near-term. The US is likely headed for a recession, which many private sector firms are already planning for. And the anticipated "enrollment cliff" (dropping college enrollments due to a decline in birthrates post 2008 recession) will hit soon after that.
Because market conditions will likely only get worse for the next several years, sticking it out doesn't really seem to make sense. Can any of your readers speak (anonymously) to whether departments and universities are already factoring in a recession and the enrollment cliff in future hiring plans, and whether university administrators are already discussing hiring freezes?
An important question. I responded to this reader in private, but I'm curious to hear what readers think--and, in particular, whether any readers on the hiring side of things have any inside information relevant the OP's choice. One thing that I didn't mention to the reader in private, but which is probably relevant, is that aside from technology (which has been notably engaging in large-scale layoffs), non-academic job markets are historically strong right now and are unlikely to remain that way. As such, if there is any good time to transition from academia to industry, it seems to me that time is probably now!
But these are just my thoughts. What are yours?
In our January "how can we help you?" thread, a reader writes:
This is a request, rather than a question. Could we make a chart with all of the unhelpful, problematic things we see through the job market process for schools--to generate collective knowledge? e.g. Some schools are atrocious with spousal hiring. Some schools pitch salaries very low, expecting you'll negotiate. Some schools have departments collapsing because the financial health of the university is bad. Surely, this information would be helpful to future candidates.
In brief, doing this sort of thing at the Cocoon isn't consistent with this blog's safe-and-supportive mission. Further, although I'm not a lawyer, I imagine that making a list of which schools do various "problematic things" could be legally problematic, viz. libel (if false allegations are spread that damages a program's reputation). However, what I think would be consistent with the Cocoon's mission is for job candidates to enumerate in fully general terms the kinds of unnecessary indignities or problematic practices they have faced on the market, without naming or otherwise implicating particular individuals, schools, or programs, either explicitly or implicitly. Doing this could be helpful, first of all, by drawing attention to the kinds of things that job candidates find to be problematic--and so, secondly, by perhaps generating some kind of impetus (viz. raising public consciousness in the profession) for improving hiring practices.
So, this is what I propose instead. Job candidates: without naming or (explicitly or implicitly) implicating any particular individuals, programs, or institutions, what general kinds of things have you encountered on the market that you consider to be problematic and warranting correction, and why? The OP named a few: schools being atrocious with spousal hiring, pitching extremely low salaries, having bad financial health as institutions that imperil departments, etc. What other kinds of (potentially) problematic things have job candidates encountered, and what (if anything) do you think would be better?
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