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Reporting Tenure-Track, Postdoctoral, and VAP Hires

March 11, 2014

If you would like to report hiring information from 2013-2014, please fill in the form at this link; the data entered there feeds into a spreadsheet available here. Quite a bit of hiring information is already available at Leiter Reports, here.

UPDATE 8 March 10:30 am CDT: This form and spreadsheet need not be limited to this NewAPPS post. If any other blog would like to link to it, they are welcome. In that case, I would be happy to make the relevant bloggers co-owners of the Google documents in question. Ideally, the information would be available in a neutral location, but having the links posted to several different blogs would come close to that.

Posted in Carolyn Dicey Jennings, Philosophy profession news, Placement data

50 responses to “Reporting Tenure-Track, Postdoctoral, and VAP Hires”

Clayton

March 7, 2014

It might be good to request that the form is only filled out by the candidatw who accepts an offer.

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Carolyn Dicey Jennings

March 7, 2014

Good point. I think it is enough to ask that posters only give information about candidates who have accepted offers, to avoid harming anyone in the negotiation process. Does that seem right, or do you have other reasons to think that only the hirees should be allowed to supply this information?

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Clayton

March 7, 2014

Hi Carolyn,
I think that you’re right. I think that the important consideration is that the person who posts know that the person who has accepted the offer is willing for the acceptance to be made public.

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Grad Student

March 7, 2014

It is hard, but not impossible, to imagine a case where the hiree would want the information public but was unable to submit it herself. (Perhaps the hiree does not know about this listing — but of course whoever it is that would otherwise post the information could just email the hiree.) It is far less hard to imagine someone reasonably but incorrectly believing that the hiree is willing for the acceptance to be made public.

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Carolyn Dicey Jennings

March 7, 2014

I may well be wrong about this, but I have always imagined that the information is in principle public once one has accepted a formal offer, even if it isn’t publicized. I could see the objection to the information being publicized, but this seems more of an issue when the particular person’s status is broadcast, rather than that status being broadcast within the set of all those who have accepted a position in philosophy this year. Does this cover the sort of worry you had?

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Grad Student

March 8, 2014

Professor Jennings – I think you’re right, the information is probably in principle public. And I imagine most graduate students want to shout this information from the rooftops. But then also most graduate students would quite willingly hand their information over. And so I suppose I think that for those few graduate students who, for whatever reason, want it not to be on the Internet just yet (maybe for personal or family reasons?), I’m inclined to say let’s give them the benefit of the doubt.
And, of course, the graduate student knows whether they’ve accepted. Others (except maybe the department they accepted at) know only second-hand. If the most reliable source is out there, and easily contacted, why publish second-hand news?

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anonymous

March 8, 2014

Maybe the hirees just aren’t interested in participating in your website.
I don’t understand what you mean by “in principle public” other than “not public”.

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Julian Backmore

March 8, 2014

Dear Anonymous, If something is ‘in principle public’ then it is something people could find out if they wished to. Some things that are in principle public are actually found out, but in many cases, people can’t be bothered, and so these things are not public in what we can call the weak sense that no one in the general public knows them. An example is perhaps the following fact: the fact of how many minutes there has been a sitting American president in office. This particular fact is in principle public, but not public in the sense that anyone in the general public is actually aware of this. However, fact A–about your neighbour’s sex life–is not public in the strong sense: that if people could be bothered to try to figure it out, they would be restricted legally from doing so.
Two qualifications: If one is sympathetic to Dummett, then there will be no facts that are in principle public but that are not known by at least someone. (My example about the presidents is probably at tension with his anti-realism: unless someone knows it).
Secondly, there is a kind of unhelpful ‘de facto’ public status that can accrue to facts that are strongly not public. For instance, take a case where most people in the town are peeping toms–they can come to have common knowledge of information that is not public in the strong sense.
Hope this helps!

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Carolyn Dicey Jennings

March 8, 2014

In my mind, the information is public in a normative sense–it belongs to the public sphere. For that reason, I do not think that the hiree’s wishes are likely to be relevant. There might be compelling exceptions, but I am of the mind that it is important for the field to collect this information and it would be best if the information were complete. If you have a compelling counterexample that would trump this sort of thing, I would be happy to reconsider my position.

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Carolyn Dicey Jennings

March 8, 2014

You make a good point about some hirees being opposed to this blog, in particular. I posted an update above that I hope will encourage some people to post the links to other blogs, so that the information is not tied to just this space.

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anonymous

March 8, 2014

I’m not sure why this as opposed to other personal information belongs in the public sphere.
But for the record, I typically wear a size 42 jacket, 17.5×34 shirt, and 32×32 pants.

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Justin Weinberg

March 8, 2014

Hi Carolyn. I’d like to take you up on the offer you made in your update and post links to the form and spreadsheet at DailyNous.com. Thanks for making these documents available.

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Carolyn Dicey Jennings

March 8, 2014

If by “this” you mean what you say afterwards, I am not sure either. But if by “this” you mean hiring information, I don’t think of that as primarily personal information. There are multiple reasons that I think this, but one reason is that the information reflects a signed contract and employment contracts are part of the public, rather than private, sphere.

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Carolyn Dicey Jennings

March 8, 2014

Great! And kudos on the comments policy.

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Professor Plum

March 9, 2014

Yeah, except that I don’t think this is true. I doubt that contracts have been signed in most of the reported cases. In most cases, the information you have shared is based on verbal offers and acceptances. I see no compelling reason why this information should be publicized until after the hiring season has come to an end. Publicizing verbal acceptances may harm candidates. One could, for example, imagine a case where there is a discrepancy between a verbal and written offer that is so serious that the candidate may decide not to formally accept the offer after all. But the candidate may find that she has been dropped from consideration at other places on the basis of the publicized information.

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anonymous

March 9, 2014

How do you get copies of other philosophers’ employment contracts?
The clothing sizes of philosophers could be reported by rummaging through their luggage in the public sphere of the lobby of the APA meeting hotel.

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Crimlaw

March 9, 2014

Do you think that the employment contracts of employees of private universities are part of the public sphere?

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Carolyn Dicey Jennings

March 9, 2014

For me it is not a matter of how easy it is to get the information, but whether the information belongs to the public or private sphere. I think that contractual agreements between employers and employees belong to the public sphere, even if the contained information need not be made public. In signing a contract, you are asking the social and legal system to protect your agreement, making that agreement a public one. So the signing of a contract is a public-making act for that agreement. Or so it seems to me. There is no similar case to be made for the bringing of (hidden) personal belongings into a public space.

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Carolyn Dicey Jennings

March 9, 2014

I do, for the reasons that I give to anonymous. I see the relevant factor to be the fact that it is a contract, although employment contracts seem especially related to the public sphere. I am not an expert in the difference between public and private domain, and I suspect others may have more interesting things to say here, but this is how I see it.

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Mark

March 9, 2014

This seems false to me. It could very well be that the parties choose to use contract because they want a last-resort arbitrator, yet they expect the details to remain between the parties. I imagine that there are an enormous number of contracts that it would be revolting to the conscience to publicize. E.g. The contracts between medical professionals and me to pay for specific services.

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Christy Mag Uidhir

March 9, 2014

Nice to see we can all come together to make this work.
I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m going back over to the People’s Front of Judea, where they truly fight the good fight against blogosphere aggressors, excluding of course those concerned with drainage, medicine, roads, housing, education, viniculture, or general contributions to the epistemic welfare of philosophers. Leiteres eunt domus!

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Carolyn Dicey Jennings

March 9, 2014

You are right about that, but this case seems different to me. I think that one key difference is that it is an employment contract, which is already regulated by all sorts of laws prior to arbitration. In any case, I think that we could probably all agree on a few things. First, for the same reasons that the hiree has the right to make the information that they have entered into an employment agreement public, so does the other party to the agreement, i.e. the university hiring that person. Second, a third party would have the right to make this information public as soon as the contract goes into effect, i.e. the first day of employment. (You might think that this second point hinges on that information already being publicly available, as when it is posted to a website or when the hiree has started teaching, but I do not see any reason to support that move as of yet.) Third, that a third party has the right to share this information once it is publicly available, if that date precedes the first day of employment. Then the question is whether anyone but the hiree and the hiring party have the right to share information about the fact that an employment agreement has been entered into prior to the start date of employment in the case that the information is not yet public, to some reasonable standard of public (e.g. sharing on Facebook is probably already public, but telling your spouse is probably not). And, more to the point, what kind of thing I should write on the form to indicate such. Any ideas?

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Carolyn Dicey Jennings

March 9, 2014

As I say above, I hope that the information is collected and shared through multiple venues. My intention is not to diminish the value of Leiter Reports, but to gather and make available employment information in a way that is not tied to his or any other blog in particular. As I concede above, every blog has its detractors. Tying the information to any one blog limits our ability to collect and share that information, which is a valuable service, in my mind.

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Grad Student

March 9, 2014

First, as a legal matter, best I can tell, that two parties have entered into an employment contract says nothing about whether that is public information. It certainly seems possible that the contract could include a confidentiality clause and the like (though of course someone seeking to litigate the contract might have a difficult time doing that non-publicly).
But more importantly, it seems to me that there are three main cases:
1) normal cases, where the new hire is almost certainly going to be very excited to make the information public;
2) “accident” cases, where some third party thinks the hiring is finished, but it is in fact not; and
3) exception cases, where for some reason (again, imagine the most personal of family reasons) the new hire would like the information to be kept quiet until the start of employment.
Even if I have some moral or legal right to publicize hires, in exception cases, I think my sympathies are aroused enough to say, hey, if we have to wait until the following fall, well that’s probably not that big a ding for the rest of us. Maybe I’m wrong about this.
But what about the accident cases? Why risk outing an accident case, when there seems to be so little to be gained?
If you want to out someone, send them a link to the database, saying, “hey, get your brag on friend!” They can make the call, and you don’t have to insert yourself in what can sometimes be a personal and stressful period.
(But I may just be misunderestimating how important it might be to have complete data as soon as possible.)

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Carolyn Dicey Jennings

March 9, 2014

I am willing to grant that there may be cases in which the right course of action would be to wait to post the information until the employment contract begins or the information has already been made public, whichever is sooner. A practical question: how would you word this advice on the form, granting that this is not itself a reason to restrict the posting of information to hirees.

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Carolyn Dicey Jennings

March 9, 2014

To all of the helpful commenters above (and silent others), I have updated the wording on the form. It now reads: “In the case that you are not the hiree in question, please only post information here that reflects an accepted offer. If there is reasonable doubt about whether the hiree would want this information posted in a public place prior to his or her start date, please confirm with the hiree before posting here.” If you have suggestions for how to improve this wording, please let me know.

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Grad Student

March 10, 2014

That seems like a great instruction to me!

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Rachel

March 10, 2014

I’m sorry, but why is this suddenly a problem for Carolyn’s list but not Leiter’s?!!!

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anonymous

March 10, 2014

The other blog where this info is posted already is moderated with restriction on who can submit the info. The project here allows anybody to upload “information”.
Anyway, I don’t really know what purposes these lists of hirings serve. If I wanted to know who was employeed at some university or where a particular philosopher worked, I could Google them.

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Rachel

March 10, 2014

Anonymous: But how secure, really, is the moderation of the other list? Anyone can submit the information claiming to be the hiree.

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anonymous

March 10, 2014

Although moderation does not prevent deception, apart from that it does prevent postings by third parties.
Nobody has explained what purpose is served by these lists even when the info is submitted by either party in a hiring agreement.

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anon grad

March 10, 2014

anonymous,
Here are some purposes the list might serve:
a) They give those who missed out on a job an idea of whether their applications were realistic. Sometimes the details of a hire aren’t available on google until long after the hiring. So it wouldn’t provide much help for the next job market, either because the information is posted too late to help or because people forget about their failed applications.
b) They provide more data for prospective students re: recent placement.
c) They update peoples on acquaintances who they would not have remembered to google on their own.

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anonymous

March 10, 2014

I don’t find these purposes especially compelling, and certainly not enough to violate whatever privacy rights philosophers might have with regard to their employment status.
a) it’s a waste of time to second guess hiring decisions.
b) departments post years of placement data. How helpful is it to have an incomplete update during the period where prospective students are chosing between programs?
c) Facebook.

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anon grad

March 10, 2014

anonymous,
Re a) I said nothing about second-guessing decisions. I said some applicants want to know if their applications were realistic. Sometimes you see who was hired and realize a job was, at the time of application, out of your league. Knowing this can save people time in the future.
b) Helpful. More data means more data. Placement records on websites are often not updated before April 15th.
c) I’m not facebook friends with everyone I’ve ever met professionally. Plus, not everyone uses facebook.
I think at this point it’s clear you see no purpose in these posts. But others do. Live and let live. And I don’t see what privacy rights are being violated if hirees are posted the info themselves. But even if such rights are violated, that would be completely independent of whether these lists serve another purpose.

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anonymous

March 10, 2014

No, I don’t see much point to these lists and have never availed myself of the opportunity to be on one or had somebody else take an interest in having me listed.
But if there is some purpose to them, I’d like to hear a better one for posting (potentially inaccurate) information about other philosophers that they haven’t chosen to reveal, the “public in principle” claim made above.

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Couldn’t resist

March 10, 2014

FYI: Those of you hoping for a Dawn Keebals joke, don’t hold your breath. I submitted an epic one that the moderator did not deign to approve.

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anon grad

March 10, 2014

anonymous,
In 32 and 34 I’ve given the purposes you originally requested at 29 and 31. And I was clear in 34 that these purposes applied on the assumption that it was the hiree posting them. Whether or not you find them convincing doesn’t defeat their status as purposes. So I have answered your question. It now seems like you want something else, namely either an explanation for why the privacy concerns are unfounded or some purposes of these lists which override these concerns. If I have misunderstood your original requests at 29 and 31, or your new request at 35, please correct me.

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Carolyn Dicey Jennings

March 10, 2014

I haven’t seen a case made for these postings as potentially violating privacy rights. Further, I think there is a very small chance that would happen and that any harm caused is likely to be very small. On the other hand, I think the benefit to having this information available is likely to be very high, since it benefits both those deciding whether they want to join the discipline and in what form as well as those who aim to improve the discipline, by catching potential problems in the hiring process and trying to find solutions for them.

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anonymous

March 10, 2014

It was explained above by another commenter how dissemination of hiring gossip, and that is what third party “in principle public information” is, can harm the hiring process.
Who works at which university (as opposed to which junior hire is going to next semester) is some of the most accessible information on the internet. There is also plenty of data on departmental placement histories and overall hiring trends.

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anon grad

March 10, 2014

anonymous,
Your first point applies only if the “hiree” has not yet been hired. But again, I’m working with the assumption that the “hiree” is, in fact, the hiree. A contract has been signed, no room is left for leverage, and so on. Besides, this is an argument against having the lists, not an argument for why the lists are w/o purpose.
As for your second point, I grant it. But the original purposes I listed are compatible with everyone you say.

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Anonymous Coward

March 10, 2014

Since some of the commenters, including the OP, are unable to imagine the privacy concerns in question, perhaps a new voice can help to clarify them. (The following arguments are enthymemes and I won’t justify the underlying logic; they are intended only as aids to the imagination.)
Premise the first: people might have a reasonable objection to supporting the empire.
Premise the second: having one’s information posted to certain dominant blogs supports the empire.
Conclusion the first: people might have a reasonable objection to having their information posted on certain dominant blogs.
Premise the third: people might have a reasonable objection to being on the radar of certain dominant bloggers.
Premise the fourth: posting here but not to certain dominant blogs might put you on the radar of certain dominant bloggers.
Conclusion the second: people might have a reasonable objection to having their information posted here but not to certain dominant blogs.
Conclusion the third: By an intuitive closure principle for reasonable objections, people might have a reasonable objection to having their information posted here.
Before closing, I note that many of us would love to see the empire crumble, and that the last few days have been a lovely start. But please let us leave arrogant dismissals of the concerns of graduate students and contingent faculty, however tin-foiled they may seem to TT faculty, among the ruins.

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Carolyn Dicey Jennings

March 10, 2014

I see your concern. It does seem possible that a hiree’s information could be posted by someone else in this forum but not in others and thereby be misunderstood as an act of resistance/retaliation by the hiree against these other forums. If you or someone else would like their information hidden for this or some other reason, please send me an email.

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Carolyn Dicey Jennings

March 10, 2014

I would like to say again: I do not intend this document to serve as resistance or retaliation against Leiter Reports or any other blog. I don’t think that negative focus on Brian Leiter, in particular, is healthy for the profession. Leiter Reports is welcome to gather hiring data using the same method I offer above. My aim is to make the process more universally available and to gather more data. I am aware that some people will not post their information to Leiter Reports and that others will not post their information to NewAPPS, etc. My hope is that with representation in multiple places we have a better chance at a complete set of data. It would be best, I think, if this were done through a common form in a common place, but I know that I cannot be the arbiter of that. At best, I can offer a form that has the potential to be shared by multiple bloggers.

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William Blattner

March 11, 2014

When I was chair of a hiring cmte I was in a situation where the candidate wanted me to wait a week before publicly announcing that he had accepted an offer. His reason was that he wanted to tell his current chair (he was changing jobs) that he was leaving in person, but the chair was traveling. So, I think that posts should be limited to the candidate, the chair or hiring cmte chair of the hiring dept, or the placement director of the grad program where the candidate studied (in cases where the candidate relied on placement services). Those are the people that are in a position where they are likely to know both (a) that the acceptance is final or formal, rather than something weaker, and (b) whether there are any disclosure considerations.

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Anonymous Coward

March 11, 2014

Thank you for acknowledging the relevance of a hiree’s wishes.

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Joe

March 11, 2014

I recall that there were a few cases of confusion, misinformation (people announcing hires before they were finalized and then the hire didn’t happen creating a lot of confusion, squashed hopes, and so on) and so on, that prompted Brian Leiter to restrict who can publish it on his website (I think only the candidate or members of the chair committees, etc.). However, I think it seems at least polite to respect the hiree’s wishes. After all, that something is in principle public, doesn’t mean it needs to be made public.

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anon european grad

March 12, 2014

Do you wish hirees with PhDs from non-English-speaking universities to report their hires (e.g. a US post-doc) here too?

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Carolyn Dicey Jennings

March 12, 2014

This is a helpful example, but I am wary of unduly limiting the posters for this reason. I know a number of people who do not (ever) look at these blogs and who could easily be hired by institutions that are similarly inclined. These people may or may not be in touch with their placement officer, and may not have a placement officer. But their information is an important part of this collection and I would not want to accidentally represent the information of only those who are tuned into the blogosphere. The current language asks the poster to consider the privacy of the hiree. I think that this reminder will be enough for almost everyone to use the required amount of respect to the hiree. In the cases that it is not, I and the other spreadsheet owners can easily hide rows upon request.

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Carolyn Dicey Jennings

March 12, 2014

I agree that it is polite. But politeness is not the only value on the table here. Hiring transparency is another. In any case, if a hiree does not want this information to show (prior to his or her start date), I am willing to hide it on request.

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Carolyn Dicey Jennings

March 12, 2014

Yes, please do! I should also alter the language of “tenure-track” to reflect the full range of permanent positions, but I haven’t decided how to do that yet. Thoughts?

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