The Creative Writing PhD and the Job Market

At Ohio University we had a professional development meeting recently and I asked the panel (CW, lit and rhet-comp profs who had all sat on various hiring committees) if the CW Phd was, truthfully, any kind of factor on the university job market.

The first answer was that schools such as Iowa or Michigan only hire writers with an established presence. "A book" isn't enough, and the PhD isn't the criteria either. That NYU hired Jonathan Safran Foer, who doesn't even have an MFA, comes to mind.

But---if the goal is a job at a smaller, liberal arts school then a PhD is a plus, because it gives you flexibility in teaching. (And yes, the CW PhD counts here). OU has placed people in this kind of tenure track job. It was also noted that if quality of life is a consideration, a smaller school might be a happier landing than a shark tank program.

Interesting to me, was how the three English Department fields have different criteria for an attractive resume.

For Rhet-Comp, teaching is critical, and demonstrated ability of administrative experience (by this I mean running a conference, not typing and filing. Althooooo. How else does one run a conference?)

For Lit, an established presence as a scholar is the thing. Too many committees, etc. might even count against an applicant, because he/she might be seen as not being serious about their research.

For us, the ability to help out with the lit mag or run the reading series makes everyone perk up. Because nobody wants to do this stuff. Grant writing ability is also a plus. Because writers never have any money.

The final tip was that grads who want a university job can’t leave the ivory tower. Not after the PhD. Grads have to adjunct or post-doc or whatever to remain in the pool.

Except the rules are always different in the arts, because there aren’t rules. Write a best-selling book that’s also a critical darling---and that NYU gig is yours. And who wouldn't rather be the sexy hire than the paper slave?

The Case Against Tenure

This might be of interest for those of you pursuing a career in higher ed.

"Tenure—the ability to teach and conduct research without fear of being fired—is still the holy grail of higher education, to which all junior professors aspire. Yet fewer and fewer professors are attaining it. The proportion of full-time college professors with tenure has fallen from 57 percent in 1975 to 31 percent in 2007. The numbers for 2009, soon to be released by the Department of Education, are expected to dip even lower.

To which some educators are saying: good riddance. Tenure is a bad deal not just for universities, which are saddled with its costs, but also for professors, who are constrained by its conventions. Cathy Trower, a researcher at Harvard University who has studied tenure for the last decade, says the current system may actually be scaring talented young people away from academia. "This one-size-fits-all, rigid six-year up-and-out tenure system isn't working well," she says."

For more, go here.

P is for PhD!

When terminal isn't terminal enough —

Two more 2008 Montana MFAs shall join me in the doctoral quest this fall:

Youna Kwak: French Literature at NYU

Catherine Moore: Media, Art & Text at VCU

Congrats, friends!

b-2-b, or, Why Three Ps Should Have A Book Deal

Hey you, friendly anonymous reader. We’re shamelessly plugging our service. Why? Because it’s a year out from MFAland and we want immediate fame, fortune and success. Here is my dirty plea (on behalf of the three of us) to have this blog made book.

Legend: b-2-b = blog-to-book

.5. CUTTING EDGE. Shameless pleading before we’ve hit our blog prime? It hasn’t been done. Well, consider it done.

1. DIRTY FILTHY MONEY. There are three of us. This means you, kind literary agent, with a keen eye for crème de la crème of the blogosphere, get more for your money. Times are tight. So isn’t three voices/perspectives for the price of one great? Remember, the three of us are perilously close to accomplishing all three objectives of this blog. Yes, enrolling in a PhD program and publishing work is great, but panhandling is not. You wouldn’t want us to resort to that, would you? We should NOT reach our three goals. You can make this dream a reality.

2. WE ARE PATRONS. You cannot call us untutored in the way of patronizing the arts. We’ve seen Didion, Carson, Chabon, Howe and Diaz. The list goes on. We’ve been to many MFA readings. We’ve shouted out until hoarse. We go to bookstores and buy books FOR FUN. We shell out money for copies of our own book.

3. THREE Ps PUBLIC RELATIONS. WE HAVE IT. Kelly & Trina did a bang-up job getting the word out via Tom Kealy’s blog, Speakeasy and Mediabistro. I sat back and basked in the glory. We have a built in fan base, see?

4. SHOCK AND AWE. We’ve got plenty of blasphemous content and/or language up our sleeves. For examples, see b-2-b Fuck You Penguin! or b-2-b Awkward Family Photos. We have posted about the blasphemy of rejection (personal and professional), the most horrendous of all human interaction.

5. THE MUNDANE. We have mastered bantering about daily life. We live it and we know how to summarize it. We can mimic b-2-b Stuff White People Like. We can call it Stuff MFA People Like and it will be clever, mark our words.

MFA People Like

a. working a job that requires an expenditure of hours unequal to the expenditure of brain power/pay. That is, too many hours and not enough brain power/pay
b. Montana
c. sitting in a darkened room when it is sunny outside, reading
d. watching birds through binoculars
e. booze

6. FRIED FOOD. We have eaten friend chicken from Double Front in Missoula, Montana. That means we have one up on another b-2-b, This is Why You’re Fat. We also still all like cheese toast.

7. FURRY ANIMALS. The three of us own five cats combined. This makes for endless contribution to and viewing of b-2-b I Can Has Cheezburger. We have researched our competition.

8. NO SHAME. Please do this thing for us? Our book jacket photo will be amazing.

9. SHAME. Ah—no, I mean…we do this because we want to a) rant and rave, b) keep in touch with other MFAers and c) provide solace [see a)]. Book or no book, the blog will still mosey along, emotional baggage intact.

P is for PhD!: An Update

If you know me, you know I accepted OU's PhD offer three weeks ago. Today I finally received word via email from FSU:

April 28, 2009

Dear Applicant,

I regret to inform you that the Department of English has not recommended your acceptance into our graduate program at Florida State University. Like many graduate programs around the country, we are limiting our enrollments in light of budget constraints and of prospects for placement of our students upon completion of their degrees. Competition for the available spaces in our program was especially keen this year, and we have been forced to deny many applicants with solid credentials. At this time we have already accepted our maximum number of students into the program.

We do wish you success in your future endeavors. Thank you for your interest in our program.

Sincerely,

Dr. Stan E. Gontarski
Director of Graduate Studies

Tara M. Stamm
Graduate Program Assistant
English Department

My understanding is that if I made it this far, then I was under serious consideration, which is nice, even if no cigar. Last year I was rejected in February. Word on the street FSU only had 2 spots this year instead of the usual “5 or 6.” That I made the inner circle is a huge compliment.

Yet, let us compare my email to the one sent Jackson Bliss, a fellow PhDer (who will be attending USC and with whom I *might* be cohosting a AWP panel on the creative writing PhD.)

And I quote from his live journal:

“Here's my gracious rejection email from Julianna Baggot at FSU, one of the final emails in a series of conversations we had:

Jackson,

It's a combination.

We usually overbook, meaning we usually accept more people than we actually expect to accept. We're trying to hit a target -- if we go over, well, we go over. But this year there was no margin to go over. At all. We could only accept as many as we had spots for. So it was tighter than usual. And then I was told one fewer and other wrenches. We had to wait. And wait. And now more folks -- from that tight offer batch -- have said yes than expected. So that's where we are.

The top seven-ten in both the PhD and MFA file in fiction, I felt like I would be honored to teach any of those students. Honored. The work was really stunning. Yours included. From there, it's a group decision. And it was painful for all of us. The work was really strong -- and varied. And the decision-making was so hard. You are hugely talented. You'll do great things. And I don't say any of this to make this easier.

All my best,

j."

I can’t help but feel a little jealous. Did I receive intimate fuzzy emails from Julianna Baggott? Engage in gracious correspondence? You know, emails employing words such as “stunning” and “honored,” signed with an adorably diminutive lower case “j”? Of course, I’m a good girl dumbass too terrified to contact an actual faculty member. I contacted the overwhelmed administrative assistant, who is undoubtedly three manila folders away from ovarian cancer. This email exchange isn't FSU's fault, but my fault, because I'm a contact-phobe.

Oh well, no is no, no matter how nicely worded. In the end, no is the final word that counts.

P is for PhD!: An Update

So it's official. I have committed to Ohio University's creative writing PhD program.

Yikes. 5 years!

P is for PhD!: An Update

Here’s the PhD app count.

Nope
UGA
Tennessee

Yay!
Ohio University

Silent As The Grave
FSU

In But No Word on Funding
UNL

Through MFA Blog and P & W Speakeasy prowling, I have determined that “no word,” translated from Admin-Speak to Applicant, probably means waitlisted. I’m not sure if that means waitlisted for funding or just waitlisted. Technically, I have heard nothing. Some people have posted in these forums FSU acceptances and others FSU rejections. Maybe there’s an unofficial waitlist and an official waitlist. Or maybe a baby alligator hatched in the hard drive. Or maybe…where are Gogol or Kafka when you need them?

I should probably contact the English departments but don’t want to be the one person who cracks the fragile eggshell mind. I feel badly for admin workers not paid enough to put a face on the unwieldy, disorganized, underfunded clusterfuck that is the American public university. You know they keep sawed off shotguns under that growing pile of manila folders. What if it’s my call that activates the inner sniper? Jo Ann Beard wrote the defining essay on the collegiate spree killer, so there’s not even a Best American in it for me.

I have noticed a general trend this year, in that lack of funded spots are now (at least partially) blamed on “the economy,” although I am suspect. After all, it was my understanding that PhD progs admitted hardly anyone to begin with. Does that mean Tenn cut back from one to zero spots this year? FSU (according to anonymous internet sources) apparently cut back “one or two” spots due to budget constraints. UNL has “two or three” funded positions.

These “this or that” numbers, however, appear to be the best investigators can do. I know times are hard for educators, because I’m guessing schools don’t want to accept people only be stripped of funding later.

I would nonetheless like to make a plea for answers that are direct as possible. I suspect the caginess stems from the fact that writers and educators are in charge, and no one wants to be the meany. Confront liberals with hard questions and they bury their heads in the organic, fair trade sand. Still, it’s wrong (wrong, I say!) for PhD progs to be even less forthcoming with funding info than MFAs. It’s one thing to decide you are willing to wing it and risk loans for 2 years. But five?

P is for PhD!

I just received a call from Ohio University. I'm in their PhD program for nonfiction.

OU offers $15,000 — untold riches for a grad student.

P as in Ph.D: An Update

I haven’t posted about my creative writing PhD apps for awhile (not since whining about the GRE subject test and the personal statement). I made a conscious decision to not over-fret this round. Amazingly, this decision worked. I must be a seasoned pro. I know the final decisions are made based bizarre, unpredictable matters of personal preference. I’ve had cocktails with these literary decision-makers after hours. Believe me on this.

Right now I’m waiting to hear from:

Florida State University
Ohio University
University of Tennessee
University of Georgia

I’m in Nebraska from last year but didn’t receive funding, so I deferred and tossed my lottery ticket back in. I should have all my answers in the next few weeks. Okay, I'm getting a little bit nervous.

I realize now how freaking fortunate I was to get in Nebraska. These PhD creative writing progs are crazy competitive. The MFA was bad enough, but even still, most applicants are weeded out quickly. My Montana MFA profs said that while they generally receive about 250 apps (fiction), only about a fifth make the first cut, which is made with relative ease. Most creative writing PhD applicants already have their MFAs. They most definitely at this point have a polished sample that gleams when held up to bright light. MFA only judges for potential, PhD judges for publication.

Each year Tennessee accepts one or maybe two per genre, and Ohio accepts one. ONE! Although I have to say I respect this, for I have noticed OU places a tenure track position about every year. One for one.

Because apparently, after the PhD is even worse that after the MFA. Which means Brother's fried chicken for lunch. AND Blue Bell ice cream (either praline or banana split).

The PhD Statement of Purpose I Wish I Could Send

Hi,

I know you are bunch of creative writers. Probably last night you were out snorting cocaine off someone’s butt. Maybe you felt up a co-ed, or maybe you were at home, quietly bathing in angst. Either way, I know you don’t really care about this statement of purpose. We all know this is a ruse to keep that cranky lit faculty at bay and appease the cloak and dagger bastards at The Graduate School.

I know you are skimming this so you can get back to your own work. I’ll try and keep this short.

I am not crazy or an asshole. I promise.

The problem here is that I can’t say this. It’s like the creepy guy in the elevator who grabs your arm and says I’m not going to hurt you. But really, I am this totally great person you will dig.

And I might make it as a writer. I’m not necessarily the greatest writer ever to hit the universe, which is not to say I don’t have something to contribute. I just need a break. Can I have a break?

Please, I can’t wait tables anymore or there will be a DEATH soon. Whose death, it’s difficult to say.

Sorry, that was a little bit melodramatic. And I know murder goes against my claim I’m not a psycho. That was hyperbole. (I like to think correct application of the term "hyperbole" proves I’m ready for the lit coursework). Sometimes kind, ordinary people get pushed too far. Let me back off a bit.

Just forget it. Forget everything! Read the sample and you either like me or you don’t. Let’s get on with it. What you want to do, fine.

I Got Standardized

Sorry if that last post was a bit dark. I would say it’s all about to get better, except I took the GRE Literature subject test yesterday. I won’t be insulted if you would rather cruise a few You Tube kitten videos.

I signed an oath on a grid sheet swearing I would not talk about this test. I look out the window for unmarked vans, wondering if I'll write my book from a New Jersey gulag. I’m so Atwood Handmaid’s Tale right now. Maybe I'll go lubricate my cracked skin with a stolen pat of butter. But I’ll divulge information for the resistance as long as I can. Okay: Milton is on it. And so is George Herbert. Blessed be.

There’s a certain familiarity to the GRE process, the kind of comfort that comes from picking a scab. This is my fourth shot (My first round of subject and lit test results expired so I had to take them again); I know what to expect:

The night before you carefully lay out your admissions ticket/directions, go to bed early, set your alarm. Then you spend too much time drinking coffee, fly out the door, discover the test center is not as easy to find as you thought, take wrong turns, accost some toothless waterworks employee for directions, freak like a wooly booly as you search for the right hideous square building located on some remote campus. Which one is it? They all look equally soul-crushing. After a few wrong doors you find a golem-faced man behind a fold out table. His look says: you are unworthy to change the toilet paper roll in my bathroom. Oh God! You are there on the wrong day. But as you hand your ticket and id he nods. He nods! You’re okay! You’re in! Relieved, you file in to a sterile, fluorescent room where you see a row of glum twenty-somethings with greasy hair and wire-rimmed glasses. That’s the Literature Subject people. You wonder: Is that what I look like? Then you twist your hair and sigh for the next four hours as you fight the desire to crawl up some watchtower with an automatic weapon.

This time around I noticed a lame duck attempt at diversity. My favorite was where I was asked to interpret African American dialect in a poem. This is supposed compensate for ten questions asking me to interpret Middle and Olde English. Not that I’m not all for interpreting African American dialect. I grew up in the South. Girl, I got that answer. A few questions required I know the most famous South American writer and his most famous novel, and the most famous African American woman writer and her most famous novel. Sorry, I can’t be any more specific that that. I signed an oath. Again, these were the only questions I got. Then it was back to Merry Olde England.

I hope the Graduate Schools of Tennessee and UGA appreciate my wasted Saturday and $130, because I’m pretty sure the creative writing faculty doesn’t care.

P as in PhD: A Reprise and a Brief Rant

To recap, I applied to two PhD programs and was accepted to one, Nebraska, but without funding. I decided to defer and work on my book for a year instead submerging myself in lit coursework. Good decision, but if an agent doesn't bite on my proposal, then I'll try to break in the old fashioned way: Get the University press to publish my dissertation. Then I have that gold star needed for my job and visiting writer apps.

Options. The way of the unknown writer is to try any and everything. So...I'm thinking I should cast a wider PhD net this time around, which means I have to decide about the GRE Subject test in the next few days. Do I really want to pay $130 (!) to not know the answers to a series of questions about fusty British fuckwits? Yet three programs on my list (USC, Knoxville, UGA) all require it. I don't believe for a red hot second that any creative writer faculty member cares about the score I get. FSU and UNL don't even require it. (Why I applied). That I would waste time studying isn't an issue.

But $130 is a lot of money for a student loan living poorling. And it's a scam. How can the GRE not be insanely profitable? You hire a few academics to write questions, rent a room and collect the cash. Furthermore, the test is outdated. It might as well be called The Thackeray Subject Test.

Complicating things further is that USC and Knoxville both accept about two students every return of Pluto. The chance of admission is very slim. Sigh.