2001-2002 Report of the Joint Committee on Placement
Division of Professional Matters of the American Philological Association
This report will supplement the Committee on the Status of Women and Minority Group's report, also available on the website; issues discussed fully in that report will not be covered here.
Please note that the supporting documentation for this report is contained in linked tables that will appear in resizable pop-up windows so that they may be consulted alongside this report; these pop-up windows should be closed as you finish consulting each table. The full report is available as an Adobe Acrobat file that may be downloaded and printed (printable version of report); all the placement tables and figures for 2001-2002 are available in in separate Acrobat files (printable version of tables and printable version of figures). It is best to use the “Print as Image” command when printing Acrobat files.
The Status of the Job Market
In 2001-2002, 150 institutions registered with the Placement Service. Of these, 70 (47%) used the Service to schedule interviews during the convention; 2 (1.3%) scheduled their own interviews; 4 (2.7%) did not publish ads; 32 (21%) published ads after the convention; and 42 (28%) did not attend the convention (see Table 3).
There were 404 candidates registered with the Placement Service in 2001-2002 (56% male and 44% female), down from 415 the previous year. Of these 404, 45 were Subscribers Only, a category that has been eliminated beginning with the 2003-2004 Placement Year. If we exclude Subscribers Only, there was actually a slight rise in the number of candidates, from 355 in 2000-2001 to 359 in 2001-2002. The gender breakdown of these 359 candidates is 57% male and 43% female, comparable to the 58/42% split in 2000-2001 (Figure 1). Of the 302 candidates who attended the 2002 Annual Meeting, 58% were male and 42% female, a considerable difference from the 61% male and 39% candidates attending the 2001 meeting (see Table 2). The number of advertised positions continued to rise, from 186 in 1999-2000 and 196 in 2000-2001 to 204 in 2001-2002 (184 definite and 20 possible). According to our traditional formula for calculating the ratio of candidates to vacancies, there were 197 vacancies and 404 candidates, yielding a ratio of 2.05, down from 2.19 in 2000-2001 and 2.45 in 1999-2000, a positive trend pointed out in the last two Placement Committee reports. If we exclude candidates in the Subscribers Only category, these ratios become 1.93, 1.88, and 1.82 (see Table 1 and Figure 9).
However, because we are now compiling statistics on hiring as well as interviewing, we can balance such predictions of trends against actual positions filled. Thus the rather positive ratios mentioned above must be tempered by the results obtained when we consider the actual statistics on hiring of candidates registered with the Placement Service, since not all advertised positions were filled, and not all positions that were filled went to Placement Service candidates.
Figure 10 charts the outcomes of all searches advertised in 2000-2001 and 2001-2002. There were 196 positions advertised in 2000-2001, but the outcome of 20 searches was not reported to the APA; of the 176 positions, 163 (93%) were filled by classicists (13 were cancelled or not filled). In 2001-2002, though we could not correlate responses from the Professional Matters Division survey of candidates with other data from the Placement Service because of an error made when the surveys were mailed, we were able to ascertain the disposition of all but 3 of the 204 advertised positions through persistent follow-up with institutions: of these 201 positions, only 161 (80%) were filled by classicists (there were 23 cancellations, 11 ongoing searches, and 6 positions filled by people in other fields).
In 2000-2001 we were able to ascertain information about 209 hires, but 66 (32%) of these went to individuals who were not registered with the Placement Service. Therefore only 34% of all candidates and 46% of candidates who attended the 2001 Annual Meeting obtained new academic positions, yielding a ratio of 2.9, or 2.48 if we subtract the candidates in the Subscribers Only category (Figure 11; see also Table 16 of the 2000-01 report). There were a total of 167 hires announced to the APA in 2001-2002, and 47 of these positions (28%) were obtained by classicists who had not registered with the Placement Service. Therefore only 30% of all candidates and 37% of candidates who attended the 2002 Annual Meeting obtained new academic positions, yielding a ratio of 3.36, or 2.99 if we subtract the candidates in the Subscribers Only category (Figure 12; see also Table 15A).
When we consider tenure-track positions, the ratios appear worse. In 2000-2001, only 71 of the 202 hires whose status was known (35%) were tenure-track and 13 of these (18%) went to individuals not registered with the Placement Service, so that only 14% of candidates (or 19.5% of candidates attending the meeting) obtained tenure-track positions (Figure 11). The ratio of candidates (excluding Subscribers Only) to tenure-track positions was thus 6.12. In 2001-2002, 67 of the 162 positions whose status was known (41%) were tenure-track and 17 of these (25%) went to individuals not registered with the Placement Service, so that only 12.4% of candidates (or 16.3% of candidates attending the meeting) obtained tenure-track positions (Figure 12). The ratio of candidates (excluding Subscribers Only) to tenure-track positions was thus 7.18. However, the job market for classicists is still considerably better than it was in the mid-nineties, and some of the current difficulties are undoubtedly due to the economic downturn and may improve with the national economy.
In our efforts to gather comprehensive and accurate statistics about placement and hiring, the APA is hindered by the number of job-seekers who do not register with the Placement Service. In 1998 there were 421 registered candidates (excluding Subscribers Only), but in 1999 this number dropped to 349 and has remained in the 350s ever since (Figure 8). The drop was apparently not due to a large reduction in the number of job-seekers, since so many advertised positions are going to non-registrants. The Placement Committee strongly urges job-seekers to enroll with the Placement Service and encourages Graduate Programs to remind their students of the benefits and protections provided by the Service. The more complete and precise our statistics, the more helpful they will be to Graduate Programs and to individuals as they plan for the future.
Employment Status of Candidates
As Table 5A indicates, 102 (25%) of the 404 candidates in 2001-2002 were graduate students, and a further 13% did not indicate academic employment (3% were employed outside academia, 3% were unemployed, and 7% did not respond to the question). The remaining 62% all had some form of academic employment: 128 (32%) in full-time temporary positions, 53 (13%) in part-time positions, 38 (9%) in full-time tenure-track positions, 22 (5%) in tenured positions, 7 (2%) in full-time pre-college teaching, and 1 (0.2%) in administration. Thus nearly half of the 404 candidates (45%) were struggling in temporary college teaching positions. Unsurprisingly, these groups also tended to apply for the most positions: 58% of those in full-time temporary positions applied for over 10 jobs and 45% of those in part-time positions did so. The only other group with high rates of job applications was graduate students, 48% of whom applied for more than 10 jobs. Table 13F shows the amount of publication reported by individuals in each employment category.
Graduate students faired best in their quest for employment, with 49% gaining new positions (21% tenure-track), followed by those with full-time temporary positions at 46% new positions (18% tenure-track). Of part-time faculty, 30% obtained new positions (18% tenure-track), and 28% of faculty with full-time tenure-track positions obtained new positions (22% tenured/tenure-track); only 25% of those who indicated they were unemployed obtained new positions, none tenure-track (see Table 5B, whose percentages are based only on the candidates who attended the Annual Meeting).
On the Professional Matters Division survey of candidates, 65 respondents (47%) indicated that they did not obtain new academic positions for 2002-2003. Of these, 38 reported that they would be continuing in academic positions they had held in the previous year, while Table 16F shows the employment status of the 27 respondents who did not hold academic positions.
Year of Doctorate and Doctoral Institution
A high proportion of candidates attending the Annual Meeting either expected their PhDs in 2002 (80, or 26%) or had received them in 2001 (49, or 13%). The years from 2000 to 1996 had 3-4% representation, with a fairly sharp drop off after that. Neither interview rates nor positions obtained favored any particular years. Table 8A shows interview rates by year of candidate's doctorate and number of job applications; Table 8B provides information about hires. Larger institutions typically dominated the lists of interview and hiring rates for their students (see Table 9A for interview rates, Table 9B for hiring information, and Tables 9C-D for the top institutions according to average number of interviews and hires). For purposes of comparison, Tables 9A and C include statistics from previous years.
Association Membership and Placement Service Use
Table 14A presents interview rates broken down by association membership, and Table 14B presents hiring data. APA members had a clear advantage both in average number of interviews (3.4) and in hiring rates (40% with new positions, 18% tenured/tenure-track). Members of both associations had a 2.7 average number of interviews and a 29% hiring rate (13% tenure-track). In contrast, AIA members had a 1.5 average number of interviews and a 28% hiring rate (7% tenure track), reflecting the lower number of positions advertised for the art/archaeology field.
Table 14C analyzes hiring data according to the number of times candidates had used the Placement Service. Unsurprisingly, the best results were obtained by those who had registered with the Service several times (42% of those who had registered three times got new positions, 25% tenure-track), while first-time registrants or those who had registered four or more times fared least well.
Report submitted by Barbara F. McManus, Vice President for Professional Matters
on behalf of the Joint Committee on Placement
APA Division of Professional Matters
American Philological Association
September 2003