Jobs and applications

I am in the unenviable position of applying for academic jobs in a persistently abysmal market. The period of applications is almost over and the waiting for a call has begun.

There are definitely more jobs this year than last, but the major difference I've noticed this year is that most places are requiring - or are willing to accept - electronic applications. Some want them sent via e-mail, but a lot have set up the process through their university's HR department. Some of these work o.k. (I can upload my cover letter, c.v., and extra materials) but some treat my application like all other applications to the university which, I find is uselessly time-consuming and redundant (since all of my employment history is spelled out in my c.v. anyway).

A few weeks ago I applied for a job the day before the deadline through an HR website application (so I could wait until the last day). So, I was surprised to find, the next afternoon, a "condolence" message in my e-mail thanking me for my application and informing me that the department was looking elsewhere. There was no way they could have reviewed all those applications in less than 24 hours. They hadn't. I received another automated message later that day apologizing for the message that was sent in error. It wasn't just sent to me but to the entire applicant pool.

But this saga doesn't end here. Two days later I received the same message, which still seemed fast but was more plausible. And two days after that, a formal message from the Search Chair apologizing for the second "condolence" message and spelling out the timeline for the hire. The system had rejected the entire candidate pool not once, but twice.

A deep and abiding mysogeny

Truth be told, I became the parent of a tiny little baby a couple of months ago. My little one is of the xx persuasion and I have a not-so-little one of the xx persuasion as well. They are both awesome. They are darling and smart and make me laugh; I love them dearly. I am so pleased that my sweetie and I decided to bring them into our lives. So, I've been really annoyed by how many people don't share our joy because there isn't a y chromosome among the two of them.

To wit: when the banker, who was admiring the little one, found out the older one is also a girl, she demanded "are you going to try for a boy?"

Part two: well-meaning fellow who keeps our rental in running order explained that he loves his sweet daughters, but really wants a son. Then explained that a medical service will, for a fee, increase the change of getting the desired gender.

My sweetie has to remind me that not everyone understands gender is not limiting and parents can do everything that they want to with any child (from lizard hunts to dress ups).

I'm still annoyed, though, by these people who insinuate that I should be dissatisfied.

In Memorium

From the UO History Depatment website:

Peggy Pascoe was the Beekman Professor of Northwest and Pacific History and Professor of Ethnic Studies at the University of Oregon. With family and friends at her side, she died from ovarian cancer on July 23, 2010, at home in Eugene, Oregon. She was 55. Peggy is survived by her life-partner of 30 years, Linda Long, and their two daughters, Ellie and Joie Pascoe-Long. She will be profoundly missed by her colleagues and the many scholars and students who were deeply influenced by her pioneering research and teaching on the history of race, gender, and sexuality.

Peggy Pascoe’s book, What Comes Naturally: Miscegenation Law and the Making of Race in America (Oxford University Press, 2009), won five major national awards: the Ellis W. Hawley Prize (for the best book-length historical study of the political economy, politics, or institutions of the United States) and the Lawrence W. Levine Prize (for the best book in American cultural history) from the Organization of American Historians; the John H. Dunning Prize (for best book in United States history) and the Joan Kelley Memorial Prize in Women's History from the American Historical Association; and the J. Willard Hurst Prize from the Law and Society Association for best book in socioloegal history. Pascoe was also the author of Relations of Rescue: The Search for Female Moral Authority in the American West, 1874-1939 (Oxford University Press, 1990). All of her work explored themes related to the multicultural past, especially but not only in the U.S. West, and women’s complex place in that past. Her prize-winning book on miscegenation law posed challenging questions about why and how relations of race, gender, and sexuality in marriage had been historically structured as questions of self-evident nature rather than social power.

Peggy was a consummate professional who gave unstintingly of her time and talent to such organizations as the American Studies Association, the American Historical Association, the Organization of American Historians, the Western History Association, and the Berkshire Conference of Women Historians. She served as co-president of the Coordinating Council for Women in History from 1997 to 2000. She was a co-editor of the American Crossroads series at the University of California Press from 1996 until her death. In 2009, she was awarded the Martin Luther King, Jr. Award for fostering diversity at the University of Oregon. She took particular pride in promoting the work of graduate students and mentoring junior faculty members and she took every opportunity to do both. The encouragement she offered to young scholars was legendary, and her ability to go to the heart of every problem, with diplomatic skill and calm, will be sorely missed by her university and professional colleagues.

Born in Butte, Montana, Pascoe said that the remarkable past of this struggling mining town spurred her interest in the history of the U.S. West. She graduated from Montana State University with a B.A. in history in 1977 and earned her M.A. in Women’s History at Sarah Lawrence College in 1980 and a Ph.D. in American history at Stanford University in 1986. She taught at the University of Utah for ten years before moving to the University of Oregon in 1996.

A fund in Peggy’s honor has been established through the University of Oregon Foundation to support graduate student research in the UO Department of History. Contributions can be made to the UO Foundation: University of Oregon Foundation, 360 E. 10th Avenue, Suite 202, Eugene, OR 97401-3273 or online at https://supportuo.uofoundation.org/ with a note designating gift to the Peggy Pascoe Graduate Student Fund in History.

Peggy was my adviser. She will be missed by me and the many, many other scholars whose work and thinking she influenced during her very distinguished career.

On job aps and caffeine

My long silence has, in fact, been a moment of significant transition. I have finished writing the dissertation and graduated - by the skin of my teeth (and thanks to the magic of my advisor). Normally, I would begin adjunct teaching the fall, but I live in the educational wasteland of California where economic conservatism is winning the battle to eradicate public education. As a result, I've cast my net wide and applied for a government job last week. This was comparatively easier than the academic job applications I completed over the past several months. The ad asked only for a resume, transcripts, and on-line responses to about 80 questions, which, themselves, consisted of "have you ever completed a long-term project that required consistent focus and work outside of the normal work day?" Oh yes, I have.

I am not entirely optimistic about this one - the pool of applicants will, necessarily, be larger. But I do know that I am eminently qualified, which may work in my favor.

As I seek to broaden my job-seeking net, I am simultaneously struggling with my affection for caffeinated beverages. Long ago, my doctor warned me to stay off of them, so I gave up coffee and adopted a less-perilous tea affinity. Since completing my "long-term project," I've tried to wean myself entirely from caffeine (though not from soothing hot beverages, sweetened with milk and honey). Quite a challenge. Surprisingly, I've found that I miss coffee all the more.

My mate is a dedicated coffee-drinker, so we have plenty of this delightful nectar. And I allowed myself a small cup this morning, much to my delight. It was, indeed, just as magical and marvelous as I remembered.

oh my

My Spring Break last week included a visit to Knott's Berry farm where I did not go on Toyota's "Supreme Scream."

This ride takes on such a different connotation. I wonder if that is a Prius?

my overdue AHA comment...

I attended the annual AHA meeting several weeks ago in lovely San Diego and have been mulling my thoughts about it during my brief moments of down time. (I am furiously revising in the hope of finishing in March even though Advisor still wants three rounds of revisions. Sigh.)

The AHA was good overall. I ran into friends I hadn't seen in a while and met some new cool people right from the start. Also, it was sunny and warm. This was my first AHA, but veterans tell me that usually the meeting is dreary and tense. Their near-universal approval of this one seems to boil down to changes: 1) a horrible job market which kept all of the job-seekers - and their conference-infiltrating panic - away, and 2) the southern California sun. Precedent indicates that next year's conference in Boston will be much less pleasant because all Boston can offer is grey skies and snow.

The job market was, indeed, as bad as all the rumors made it out to be. I applied for 20 jobs and got one interview, which, as I discovered, was a small miracle (since I'm ABD and don't attend a top-tier school). I think this speaks to the strength of my project(s) and breadth of training (in public and world history as well as US). Anyway, the interview went fine but not well and I walked away from our very pleasant conversation know that I would not have a campus interview. I'm ok with that. I also applied for only one job through the job registry. This list was sickeningly short. There were less than twenty jobs posted and only a couple in U.S. (and these wanted someone who could teach every aspect of world and US history and supervise interns and teach public history - basically everything). I'll be heading to Boston next year, so I comment then on whether there is any improvement or not.

The boycott was... disappointing. I knew that HERE planned to coordinate a boycott long before the conference and I supported the issues that motivated it. I also thought that the AHA took appropriate steps to use the Manchester hotel as a forum to discuss LGBT issues and the controversies over same-sex marriage. The hotel is not unionized and HERE (smartly) wouldn't say that they were trying to unionize workers there (let's hope so; they deserve union representation). This is why I didn't accept the unsolicited offer by one AHA member to reschedule my session for me in a different hotel. I also didn't feel remorse when I walked past the 3-4 person picket line rallied outside the Manchester on Friday.

Boycotting the Manchester turned out to be easy. I spent some time there but no money; that hotel was way beyond the means of graduate students, new faculty, and even some tenured faculty. The rooms were over-priced and so was all the food (in table-service only restaurants). I had to walk next door to the Marriott to find food at the Starbucks, which ran out by 1 PM because 60% of attendees also went for breakfast and lunch.

What I saw of the conference sessions were predicable, some good papers, some good comments. I didn't attend many because the AHA is exhausting and I needed down time. So, this is what I got from my AHA: meet up with friends, try to attend sessions, avoid the job registry, eat good food, and remember to relax.

something to chew on...

I'm off to the AHA, under a particularly grim cloud that hangs over the profession. Here's the AHA's guru on the state of the profession, Robert Townsend's take on the job market.

If you're brave enough to read the above article then be sure to follow that up with the insightful questions Brainstorm asks of demand- and supply-side factors in the history job "market."

hunting

I just submitted my twentieth job application. I have only a few more to go. This effort has paid off; I have an interview, which was my highest expectation heading into the process the academic job hunt.

I've noticed that as the job hunting season heads into its twilight the application requirements are becoming more and more strange. The earliest applications were straight-forward and predictable: letter, CV, writing sample, maybe a teaching statement. Now, I encounter requests for a statement of scholarly philosophy, employment forms, and on-line applications (not to mention proof of membership in the Lutheran Sanhedrin - I couldn't apply for that one). The forms and on-line application are particularly tedious since they appear designed for the hiring of staff ("list your employment history for the past ten years") and the CV I submit with my applications is always more detailed than I could be in the form/ap.

But only a few more weeks of unusual requests, (*sigh*) for this year.

insanity by degrees

1000 words.

That is what I still need to cut from my article manuscript in order to meet the miserly guidelines of the review committee. And don't think that these are reasonable guidelines. I am supposed to submit a 7000 word essay (including footnotes)!! Who writes journal articles like that?! 7000 words is graduate-seminar essay length; it begins to tell a story but can't do it justice. Still, I think if the reviewers read the beginning of my story, they will be so enthralled that they'll want to read the full 13,000 word version. Let's hope so! Cross your fingers for me.


(This must be driving me nuts because it prompted me to update my blog!)

meeting the standards

California grade-schoolers work all year in preparation to pass the state standards exam. Here's a sample worksheet that is supposed to help them meet those standards.* Click on the image for a better view.

*and it passes on the tradition of ethno-racial stereotyping

Blend

"Blend." That's the new word in trend-setting California for locating a new low in public education.

Last week, during the third week of instruction, one of the second-grade classes at Local Elementary School was "blended" with a third-grade class. Now, second and third grade students share the same classroom, instructor, and instructional time even though they are both held to two different sets of standards. Everyone I know who teaches at post-secondary institutions is familiar with the general notion of a "blended" classroom. We get a diverse array of students with different backgrounds, abilities, and experiences, who respond at different rates to the material that everyone gets in class. We meet them and their needs and work to expand their skills and knowledge.

Based on my limited observation, this is also the case in a traditional grade school class. Every classroom has kids who read or crunch numbers beyond or behind their peers; others have stayed up late playing video games, and others just daydream. Because of No Child Left Behind and its implementation through State Standards Tests, the grade-school teachers that I know work to get each student to some abstract grade level that is presumably measured by those tests but they also work to expand the skills and imagination of students in ways that can't be measured by tests.

"Blended" classes are not these traditional classes that unite students approximately based on age and ability. In fact, "blends" are not new to California but there are a lot more of them this year because state-lawmakers have proved themselves totally unable to comprehend fiscal and social responsibility. Thus, my local second-grade became a 2/3 blend a couple of weeks after the school-year had started. And, to clarify further, a blended class does not track each child individually, mapping their progress and teaching them how to self-motivate and take charge of daily and weekly assignments. This is not a Montessori-style of blended classroom. Instead, one teacher is responsible for teaching two different, state-approved, grade-level curricula to two different sets of students in one class every single day (until they take their State Standards Test in the Spring). In other words, "blending" is a great business model; when measured in raw numbers we California residents get more grade-schoolers through our public institutions while we spend less educating them. But, as we're all well-aware, business should never be allowed near education.

We learned last week, after nearly a full week of "blending," that the 2/3 teacher is "excited" by the coming year. She will scurry between second and third graders throughout the day, shift the third grade to another classroom for social studies, and get the windfall of having an "aid" (read: part-time, no benefits, minimum wage). She will now have students in her class who range in age from 6 to 9 years old. And she has a bigger class too. Twenty-four second graders this year and six third-graders (she had a total of 17 second-graders last year) . But she is still held to the grade-standards set years ago for smaller classes. This "excited" second-third grade teacher offered the very telling explanation that (degree-carrying and certified) teachers "are a luxury" in California's public education system.

Before the current school year California was ranked 51st in the nation for its spending on public education (behind all other states and Puerto Rico). We thought California had hit the bottom before we discovered that the bottom had fallen out of the state economy. Now, California is probing the depths beyond paucity as it "funds" public education, and teachers, we discovered, have become a "luxury."

I can't help but worry over where this is headed: how will California continue to secure federal funding when its students fail to meet federal standards because the students simply cannot pass the tests? How many times will those students who stick with it have to repeat grades? Will all California public school graduates be 22 or older when they finally finish? Where can these "kids" go to college (at similarly strickened California Universities)? And what kind of professions could they possibly enter? Has K-12 education in California become something that only the rich can afford (through private schools)?

Grade-school teachers are a luxury that California has to force itself to indulge.

hiatus

Taking a hiatus is nice, but it's a difficult thing to come back from.

I took a blogging hiatus this summer. I took hiatus from a lot of my routine. The four weeks I had planned to spend in Montana grew to six. This was a hiatus from home, not from work. And, as it turns out, I accomplished a lot. I finished a chapter that I had been struggling to complete for months. It became monstrous - in terms of size, not content. Now, Adviser tells me that it is two, not one chapter. Which means one more chapter - the denouement - will suffice for a dissertation. (This, despite the fact that I have grand visions for an additional chapter. It can wait.) I am enjoying a few brief days of levity; it's as if an incredible weight I've been carrying feels a bit lighter. No doubt, I will grow weary under its weight again as I turn to revisions and to the introduction, but I plan to remember this fleeting levity which I'm enjoying at the end of my hiatus.

plugging away

I'm still writing. Always writing....

Here's a maze game I found amid my research documents that I though I would share with anyone who happens by my blog. It's from the Daily Worker (November 1934) and was published under the "Our Young Readers" section. Can you help the angry worker find his nemesis, "Mr. Boss."

And in other news, I get to visit New York next week (for work, unfortunately, so no time to sight-see).

fluency

Years ago, when I began to learn a foreign language, I recall hearing that one of the milestones of language acquisition would come to me in my dreams. That is, when I started dreaming in French (for example), then I was really getting somewhere. The premise, I think, is that the sounds and symbols and concepts would become so familiar that I could use them even in my sleep. I used to dream in French; I don't anymore. Now, I dream in dissertation. I wouldn't say that all aspects of the stories I have learned and retell are absolutely, crystal clear to me (just like a foreign-language learner can never shed her accent). But I do think I've achieved some sort of fluency in my dissertation. The strange thing is that now I have no one to talk to.

One of the clearest signs of my emerging fluency is dreaming. But what I welcomed in language learning, I dread with the dissertation process. I don't want to work out the issues I'm struggling with - like state versus federal forms of colonial citizenship - while I sleep because doing so keeps me from sleeping. So, I've been looking for ways to cut the stream of thought and leave my dissertation only to waking hours. I've been lucky to find not one, but two great histories that I can read before going to sleep that allow me to leave everything behind while resting. They're so good they're worth recommending because both are histories that tell engaging stories. Peggy Pascoe and Glenda Gilmore use different styles to tell their tales but they provide enough personal and contextual detail to make for a very engaging read. I like how What Comes Naturally connects the seemingly simple and personal process of getting married to the policing of racial, gender, sexual, and economic boundaries that shored up white supremacy. Laws, lawmakers, and administrators worked hard to make the racial order seem so effortless. Defying Dixie is equally as fascinating because Gilmore connects a vast web of revolutionaries throughout the South to the rest of the U.S. and beyond. Then, she connects that to the modern CRM and shows how it was made possible but also stymied by a radical past. How could I not enjoy reading about a hushed-up revolution? I will take months more to finish these great histories but I am not hesitant to add to my list. I welcome all recommendations for other ways to temper my burgeoning fluency.

mind-read

Mind-reading can be a good thing. Like most gifts, it should be assessed on the "Fabulous-to-Frightening" scale. This time, I'm going with Fabulous.

How amazing is this: two University of Wisconsin professors read my mind and wrote a book for me. Actually, it's a collection of essay, but, again, I'm sure they did it for me after reading my mind when I was thinking "there is no concise monograph on the different incarnations of aggressive U.S. imperialism and its impact on the state." (Fortunately, they weren't reading my mind when I was thinking 'what can I do with leftover Pho?'") Wasn't this publication nice of them?

untitled

I've started several posts that I couldn't finish over the past few weeks. My brain power is ebbing and I have deadlines to meet - so whatever I have must go to the chapters. In my flurry of writing and reading, though, I've met with some wonderfully snarky comments. So, with the hope of reading updates on all my far-flung colleagues, I offer this measly post. (Appropriately, Marx gets the last word.)

"There is no justification for sentimentality about the Insular Cases. They were designed for the convenience of the conqueror[s]." ~Gerald Neuman

"Mainland Americans can be divided into two groups: those that know that 2,100,000 American citizens reside in Puerto Rico; and those - perhaps the majority - who remain unaware of this fact fifty years after the war with Spain." ~Carey McWilliams (1946)

"The tradition of all the dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brain of the living." ~Karl Marx

flying home

I'm back from Seattle and a wonderful conference. I got to see advisor, B., and Cabiria and meet S. Together, we had a great panel. One (exceptional) audience member commented "Your panel was beautifully organized, your papers were beautifully written, and it was a pleasure to listen to them." How's that for encouragement!?

I also met established and up-and-coming scholars and saw some good sessions - one was even great. And the only malady I suffered from was fatigue (which, I discovered, was getting off easy). There were just a few talks that I painfully regret missing but thanks to the magic of the internet, I will get to listen to Mary Ryan's talk on the future of women's history (and I look forward to the day when more sessions are on-line like this).

This visit to Seattle was bittersweet, too. Seattle was my home ten years ago; that is where I met R and where we first became a family. I love that city and its many nooks and crannies that remind me of a time that seem like another life. Such reminiscences, though, made me look forward to my return home, a place where awaits six-year old balloon games and a computer with chapters aching to be written.

education on a shoe-string

I peruse the "help wanted" sections of h-net and other academic job markets from time to time. Even though I'm not officially "on" the job market, the prospect of applying for a job is exciting. Actually, I should say, the prospect of there being a job that I can apply for is exciting - particularly since I live in mightily-bankrupt state (as opposed to the newly-bankrupt states). I wondered how deeply the new state "budget" would effect the job market for higher education and then I saw an ad for CSU Northridge. It can't be that bad if Northridge has posted an ad, right? Then I read the ad. The generic search for adjuncts ends by saying:

Given the condition of the California budget for the CSU system this year and the current entitlements of part-time instructors, it is very likely that we will have few if any openings. We are, however, required to advertise.

Puzzling. They have to advertise for positions that, in all likelihood, they don't have.

Well, if I'm not going to adjunct then I will put that energy into my dissertation. So, I head on over to the library website for my neighborhood California university to see if it can help me find that obscure study, only...
If the state university systems are a public service, then the outlook for California, over the next generation, looks pretty bleak.

ruminations on government, money, and work

In the past week I finished our taxes and, technically, I made the most money per hour that I've ever made in my life. Amid the glee I felt over our expected refund were pangs of concern: can the government really afford to give me back this money? While I ponder this question, I won't hesitate to take it.

My bankrupt state also passed a budget last week - in record time (they have tended to straggle over the finish line in late-September), and today I saw city work crews out en force. Coincidence? No. I need to remember these men and women in a few months when I begin to kvetch about the state's cutbacks. At least someone is at work. Sadly, this may not include the lunch lady, librarian, or recess attendants at young S's school. Rumors have it that in order to met the "budget" in my bankrupt state, these positions along with school lunch programs and busing will be eliminated. And while shaking my head at the extreme short-sightedness of nearly eliminating funding for public education, I will remind myself of directions the state has not gone yet. We dodged a bullet by picking the California job over the Georgia one. Georgia's state assembly is debating how to suspend funding for faculty who do "unnecessary research." How does tenure work again when you have no paycheck?

My final scrape with government and work in this past week was as that of spectator to the particularly vicious sport of immigrant labor. My neighbor - International Academic - moved to the US in the OC last fall to begin a tenure-track position at Nearby College. Now that Dr. IA and famille are settled, Nearby College dropped the bombshell: "you need to get your green card right now so we can continue to employ you, it costs $7000, oh, and by the way, we canceled all your summer teaching because we have no money - our state is bankrupt." Dr. I.A. is fresh out of grad school, so the fees associated with buying a U.S. job are staggering. Dr. I.A.'s Mrs I.A. has waded into a similar morass. She got a special work permit that will allow her to take the job she was offered and work in the U.S. for one year. The only catch is that she can't leave the country during that time. The family and research of both Dr. I.A. and Mrs. Dr. I.A. are all located outside the U.S. The obstructions this country has established between non-citizens and "legal" domestic work are draconian. This is nativism enshrined in government.

[deep exhale]

I recently finished (and sent off) my third chapter. I am please, but not as pleased as I expected to be. It took me months longer than I scheduled to finish it and I'm still tired (though relieved).

Grossly missing my deadline isn't the only thing I didn't anticipate. I wrote a lot more than I expected, 54 pages before I trimmed it back to 43 (but before I added the spacing). More important, though, the story didn't turn out as I expected. It is still really top-down, which makes it oppressive and disheartening. Discussing citizenship for a minority (and subject people) requires top-down analysis, but one of the contributions I'm still claiming is bottom-up. So, this is my target when I get to revisions (provided Advisor agrees to such targets).

Ah, I can't wait for the revisions stage, when the whole thing is drafted. Completing this chapter gets me just over the half-way point. And I did have a lot to say. I'm also excited to get to the next chapter (oh, good stories there). So, I should be able to muster up some excitement to carry me through a couple of conference papers and into the drafting of chapter four. (Of course, I welcome all external means of excitement mustering!)