Dollars and sense | Recession makes it harder for grad students to enter academic job market

The recent economic downturn has not only affected people trying to enter the sphere of higher education as students. Graduate students hoping to get jobs as professors are also experiencing difficulties because of the recession.

Hiring freezes, funding shortages and a decrease in the number of retiring professors are among the reasons many graduate students are concerned about finding employment.

A number of universities have cut back or frozen hiring, including Stanford, Harvard and Brown universities. Penn's School of Arts and Sciences has also instituted a hiring freeze.

Because of the cutbacks on hiring, there have been a number of colleges and universities that have cancelled job searches for new professors, said Career Services senior associate director and graduate-student and postdoctoral-fellow career advisor Julie Vick.

"This is a really tough year," she added.

The decline in interviews is particularly evident in the humanities, according to Vick.

For jobs in some of the humanities and social sciences, candidates for professor positions will typically interview at national conferences in their discipline for approximately 45 minutes before being interviewed at an institution, Vick said.

This year, the American Historical Association reported a 15-percent decline in interviews from last year at its conference, while the Modern Language Association - a professional society for those in English and many foreign languages - reported a 21-percent decrease in interviews from the previous year.

Graduate and Professional Student Assembly chairman and fourth year Ph.D. student Andrew Rennekamp said the decline in available professorship positions is more of a concern in the humanities than it is in the sciences because there are less funds available for humanities positions.

A larger amount of humanities research is funded outside of the government, Rennekamp said. Since these organizations lost money due to the economy, funds are tighter in the humanities than in the sciences.

Another reason why graduate students are nervous about obtaining a position in academia is because there is a decline in the number of professors retiring.

According to Rennekamp, graduate students were concerned about the decline in aging professors retiring even before the economic downturn.

However, the loss of retirement-fund money due to the recession means that many professors are having second thoughts about retirement, Vick said.

"What they thought they would be living on just isn't there," she said.

School of Arts and Sciences Dean Rebecca Bushnell said the economic downturn has not had as significant an impact on Penn professors' retirement plans as she had anticipated. Bushnell is still having conversations with faculty about retirement.

While Penn's graduate students are "very anxious" about getting a job upon completion of their programs, people are still getting jobs, said Ralph Rosen, the associate dean for graduate studies at Penn's School of Arts and Sciences.

Rosen added that he thinks some of the differences across disciplines may be anecdotal, and the available positions vary more by university than by subject.

Because some schools' budgets were set over the summer before the economy worsened, Rosen said, the academic job market is expected to be more difficult in the future.

"Everyone's saying things are going to get worse next year," he said.

Graduate students hoping to eventually become professors agree that the problems in the academic job market may escalate.

Third-year Political Science Ph.D student Matthew Mongiello wrote in an e-mail that he thinks the job market will be worse for graduate students in a few years because there will be a backlog of graduate students looking for professor positions.

"Departments have stopped or slowed hiring, but they continue to train graduate students," Mongiello wrote. "Competition for the few spots that are open will be intense for years to come."

Ruth Erickson, a second-year doctoral student in Art History, also wrote in an e-mail that the job market is becoming increasingly competitive. Nonetheless, she feels Penn students may be at an advantage because of the University's prestige.

"Everyone is worried about getting a job, but you just have to work hard and produce the best scholarship you can," Erickson said. "We are fortunate to be at a highly respected school."

Graduate students who cannot find ideal professor positions in higher education may consider other options for the time being.

Prospective professors are broadening their job searches to include positions at less prestigious and different types of institutions, Vick said, while others may postpone their graduation date or continue their studies with postdoctoral fellowships.

Some graduate students also are planning to use their degrees outside of academia. For example, Erickson said many Art History doctoral students are considering working at museums and auction houses.

For Penn graduate students still aiming to become professors, the University is trying to attend to their concerns, both in helping them find jobs and by helping them get additional money as teaching assistants.

"We are doing everything we can to support our graduate students," Bushnell said.

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