Jobs in academia present opportunities, challenges for Penn students

In two weeks, most juniors will be wrapping up five-eighths of their undergraduate curricula. College junior Jacob Robins, however, will not be. Instead, he will be finishing his eighth graduate-level course.

A thesis and an application away from being considered for submatriculation, Robins has been tackling graduate coursework since his sophomore year. Last year, he took on six — an “almost unhealthy” number — of 500-plus level math courses. This semester, he is taking two more as well as self-studying Math 600 under the guidance of a graduate student. Robin is also a teaching assistant for Math 170, Ideas in Mathematics.

All this, Robins said, is in preparation for a career in academia.

Robins exemplifies the kind of drive and determination necessary when seriously considering entering the field. The academic job market is competitive and is often one in which supply does not meet demand.

A single opening at Penn will typically draw in more than 200 applications, according to Rob Carpick, professor and chair of the Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics Department.

This year, hundreds of graduating Ph.D. students in economics will fly to Chicago the weekend after New Year’s Day in hopes of acing their interviews with hiring departments from across the nation at the annual American Economic Association meeting, which helps connect current academics with job hopefuls.

For any given candidate, the number of interviews granted — if any at all — will be only a handful, despite having sent out over 300 applications in the fall. This number is standard for graduating Ph.D. students, said Mark Bognanni, a fifth-year economics Ph.D. candidate.

“If you do a good job, you might be flown out to the school later that month to do even more interviews with the department,” Bognanni said. “If you’re lucky.”

A less traditional skill set

For most doctoral students at Penn, the end goal is a tenure-track position at a leading research university.

Openings are determined on a department-by-department basis and are usually driven by the need to maintain faculty size for the curriculum. These openings for new tenure-track positions — also called “tenure lines” — vary depending on the number of staff retiring or the amount of program expansion in a given year.

Traditionally, tenure-track professors are hired and evaluated based on excellence in research and instruction. However, in recent years, the market has expanded to emphasize less traditional skills, such as grant-writing, as part of the hiring package.

For fields like engineering, where research depends heavily on funding, the ability to write effective grants is becoming especially valuable.

“Funding from external sources such as the National Science Foundation has gotten more scarce and more competitive,” Carpick said. “So while the ability to grant-write didn’t used to be such an important consideration 20 years ago, nowadays, it’s important to be able to convey if not, frankly, to sell their research.”

In fact, an inability to communicate the relevance of their research could often be “a kiss of death” for applying candidates.

Across national borders

This tightening of funding from external sources is also affecting the job market on the applicant side.

“External national grants have not kept pace with what this country needs to stay competitive in research,” Carpick said, “and we have seen faculty members leave to take positions in countries like India and China when better opportunities exist.”

The reasons for relocating abroad are usually complex and often involve personal factors, said Lynn Lees, vice provost for Faculty.

With the growing applications of the internet, academia is now a much more international market. However, just as faculty might be inclined to pursue their research elsewhere, international candidates are also gaining increased access to the U.S. job market.

“The job descriptions are now transparent and people outside the U.S. can apply for American jobs,” Lees said.

The increase of international candidates is apparent even at the doctoral level. Over 900 candidates apply for Penn’s economics Ph.D. program each year, of which 26 to 28 are accepted. Only three or four of these will be American, Economics professor Kenneth Burdett said.

Not one-size-fits-all

For those who set foot on the tenure track, the path does not always end in tenure.

The tenure review process is long and involved, and discussions behind each decision are kept strictly confidential. Generally evaluated on research, teaching and service to the university, a candidate has to pass through multiple rounds of assessment involving both internal and external review to achieve tenure.

For some, the review process at the end of their seven-year contracts brings news of dismissal rather than lifetime job security. By the terms of the contract, the University cannot hold onto those who fail the tenure review.

However, not all careers in academia are centered around achieving tenure. While a vast majority are, especially at institutions like Penn, faculty composition is varied and offers opportunities for those who might have a different mix of objectives for being in academia.

For instance, Rebecca Stein, director of the Microeconomic Principles program, belongs to the subset of non-tenured standing faculty whose primary focus is teaching and education.

On the other hand, research professors, who are more commonly found in the Medical School, focus exclusively on conducting research.

Clinician educators, another type of faculty created for the health and medicine-oriented schools at Penn, focus exclusively on research and clinical work. While they do not formally hold tenure, they “effectively have employment guarantee,” Lees said.

Other positions — such as practice professors, adjunct professors, lecturers, and academic clinicians — are classified as non-standing faculty and serve different, yet crucial roles at Penn.

They help address the increasing specialization in academia and allow for greater hiring flexibility to meet the constantly changing needs of students, Lees said.

For instance, neuroscience, which was an emerging field in the mid-1990s, called for more researchers and professors. At the time, it was not a strong enough area to warrant standing faculty. Hiring non-standing faculty allowed the University to observe the changes in the field and adapt to them with flexibility.

Non-standing faculty are also well-suited for schools that have a strong element of practical application. In the School of Education, the School of Social Policy & Practice and the School of Design, for example, some of the best teachers are not research faculty members, but those who are actually in the field, Lees said.

“A research university is a very complicated place, and we have an enormous faculty that is specialized in a lot of different functions — it’s not just one size fits all,” Lees said.

A life-long passion

Beginning the pursuit of academia takes careful consideration.

Getting a Ph.D. alone requires a strong commitment and Director of Career Services Patricia Rose believes that it is important for students to receive encouragement, endorsement and guidance from the department and faculty members.

Graduate and undergraduate coursework can vary significantly. Julie Miller Vick, senior associate director of Career Services, often sees students drop the academic track after about one year because it “isn’t what they thought it would be.”

Students hoping to pursue careers in academia, and especially those who are aiming for tenure, should be confident that they are going to remain passionate about a field for the span of their career.

“Assuming you get tenure, the institutions will have made a real commitment — a lifetime commitment — to you and your work,” Vick said.

College sophomore Mauricio Novelo intends to pursue a career in comparative literature and has already started developing his statement of purpose for graduate studies.

“I know how competitive it could be, but I’m the type of person where you either go big or go home,” Novelo said. “I’m not ashamed to say this during my sophomore year. I’m confident because I am passionate about literature.”

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