Even in these tight economic times, graduate and post-graduate students looking to find a job in education should not lose hope.
Last night, School of Arts and Sciences dean Rebecca Bushnell and School of Medicine Executive Vice Dean and Chief Scientific Officer Glen Gaulton spoke to a crowd of about 50 young adults looking for advice on how to hack into the tightest job market the country has seen in decades.
The conversation, which was held in Houston Hall's Class of '49 Auditorium, began with an introduction by Bushnell on the effect of the financial crisis on Penn, which derives 70 percent of its revenue from tuition.
Bushnell said institutions like Penn are coping with tight budgets by "reigning in the faculty." This affects those looking for jobs in education, as the majority of professors are now tenured.
According to Bushnell, the humanities have seen the most extreme cuts. Specifically, Penn's departments of history, social science and romance languages are experiencing cuts in faculty size of up to 8 percent. Hiring will slow to a minimum for at least the next fiscal year, leaving many Ph.D. and post-doctoral students jobless.
Glauton and Bushnell both advised attendees to be productive until the economy loosens up.
Having both entered the job market during the economic recession of the early 1980s, they cited personal experiences of taking seemingly undesirable temporary jobs to cope with the harsh economic climate.
Glauton, for instance, did a second postdoc to better align himself with those that could connect him with a job later on.
Bushnell described taking a less than glamorous position as a leave-replacement instructor at Penn and did her job so well that she shortly found herself on the tenured track.
Despite the grim economic climate, both Bushnell and Gaulton emphasized the ephemeral nature of the crisis.
"Undergraduates will always need teachers to educate them," Gaulton said. "Pent-up demand will make jobs once the economy sees an upswing."
