Behind the Academic Curtain: How to Find Success and Happiness with a PhD

203 Pages·2013·0.98 MB·English

by  Frank F. Furstenberg

behind
the
academic
curtain
chicago guides to academic life
A Law School Compass
Andrew B. Ayers
Th e Chicago Guide to Your Career in Science
Victor A. Bloomfi eld and Esam El-Fakahany
Th e Chicago Handbook for Teachers
Alan Brinkley, Betty Dessants, Esam El-Fakahany, Michael Flamm, Charles
Forcey, Mathew L. Oullett, and Eric Rothschild
Th e Chicago Guide to Landing a Job in Academic Biology
C. Ray Chandler, Lorne M. Wolfe, and Daniel E. L. Promislow
Th e Chicago Guide to Your Academic Career
John A. Goldsmith, John Komlos, and Penny Schine Gold
How to Succeed in College (While Really Trying)
Jon B. Gould
How to Study
Arthur W. Kornhauser
Doing Honest Work in College
Charles Lipson
Succeeding as an International Student in the United States and Canada
Charles Lipson
Th e Th inking Student’s Guide to College
Andrew Roberts
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How to Find Success and
Happiness with a PhD
frank f.
furstenberg
Th e University of Chicago Press
Chicago and London
frank f. furstenberg is the Zellerbach Family Professor of Sociology
Emeritus at the University of Pennsylvania. He is the author of many books,
most recently Destinies of the Disadvantaged: Th e Politics of Teenage Childbearing.
Th e University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637
Th e University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London
© 2013 by Th e University of Chicago
All rights reserved. Published 2013.
Printed in the United States of America
22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 1 2 3 4 5
isbn-13: 978-0-226-06607-3 (cloth)
isbn-13: 978-0-226-06610-3 (paper)
isbn-13: 978-0-226-06624-0 (e-book)
doi: 10.7208/chicago/9780226066240.001.0001
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Furstenberg, Frank F., 1940– author.
Behind the academic curtain: how to fi nd success and happiness
with a PhD / Frank F. Furstenberg.
pages; cm. — (Chicago guides to academic life)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
isbn 978-0-226-06607-3 (cloth: alk. paper) — isbn 978-0-226-06610-3
(pbk.: alk. paper) — isbn 978-0-226-06624-0 (e-book) 1. College teaching—
Vocational guidance—United States. 2. Universities and colleges—
United States—Faculty. 3. Doctor of philosophy degree—United States.
4. Universities and colleges—United States—Graduate work.
5. Career development—United States. I. Title.
lb1778.2.f87 2013
378.1′2—dc23 2013008316
Th is paper meets the requirements of ansi/niso z39.48-1992
(Permanence of Paper).
contents

Preface vii

Acknowledgments xv
1
Entering Graduate School 1
2
An Academic Career or Not? 39
3
Being an Assistant Professor 73
4
Academic Midlife 113
5
Th e Endgame 149
Notes 173
Index 183

preface
Like many senior professors who have spent their lives teaching in a
university, I frequently fi nd myself discussing the possibilities and per-
ils of managing an academic career with graduate students, postdocs,
and younger faculty. Despite a large and ever-growing number of stud-
ies on academia and “how-to” books and blogs, I am always amazed at
how little newcomers know about what goes on behind the academic
curtain. Lacking experience in higher education, they are oft en mys-
tifi ed about the everyday life practices and customs of academic life.
Understanding how academic life actually works—not just how it is
supposed to work—is, I contend, essential to fi nding happiness and
success once you have a PhD. Some might say that these twin goals
are almost contradictory or at least diffi cult to reconcile. Knowledge
of what goes on behind the academic curtain increases the chances of
making informed and wise choices, which in turn increase the chances
of getting what you want once you have your PhD in hand.
My observations draw liberally from my own experiences, comple-
mented by discussions (sometimes informal interviews) with other ac-
ademics. For the past fi ve years, I have also diligently read and clipped
hundred of articles and reports from the Chronicle of Higher Education
and Inside Higher Ed, the leading publications on academic life. I rely
less on scholarly studies and do not intend this book to be a compen-
dium of academic research about academia. Some of that work is use-
ful for gaining an understanding of how academia works, but a lot of it
is not particularly relevant to the strategy or practice of managing an
academic career. Aft er all, knowing what predicts academic productiv-
ity is, at most, of minor interest to any particular scholar trying to com-
vii
plete an article or book. My observations are nonetheless tempered by
research fi ndings, which I will occasionally cite, but much of what I
have to say refl ects what I have learned as a teacher and researcher at
the University of Pennsylvania, where I have taught in the Department
of Sociology throughout my academic career.
While my position at Penn might qualify me to talk about life in a
top-tier academic position, what can I say about academic life across
the wide range of small colleges, local universities, community colleges,
and public and private universities that make up the huge complex of
higher education in the United States? Th is nation has one of the larg-
est and most diverse set of institutions in the world, made up of almost
4,500 colleges and universities serving over 21 million undergraduates,
including those attending two- and four-year colleges. Each year a mil-
lion and a half students receive associate or baccalaureate degrees. Th e
range in quality of these programs is staggering, as is the quality of fac-
ulty life. Th e stratifi cation in higher education is impossible to ignore
and will be a central feature of my account of how academia works: it
operates very diff erently at diff erent levels and types of institutions.
Over the past four decades, I have observed academics working un-
der very diff erent conditions, including faculty from two- and four-
year colleges who enjoy little or no support for their scholarly activities.
I have participated in a number of department reviews, given collo-
quia at a huge range of institutions, gotten scuttlebutt from countless
conferences and meetings, and come to know faculty members from
a wide variety of institutions. My former students are spread about in
departments of all types, and their observations have been invaluable
in writing this book. I have circulated chapters to friends, students,
and colleagues willing to read and comment. You might say that I have
been a “participant-observer” in the fi eld of higher education for a very
long time.
It would be misleading to potential readers, however, if I did not ac-
knowledge up front that I have a lot more to say in this book about how
academia works for those headed for or in a tenure-track position than
those who are spending their careers in a for-profi t institution, a local
teaching institution, or a community college, where job security may
be perilous and working conditions less than ideal. Nonetheless, my
observations are aimed at academics at all ranks and in varied settings,
viii · preface
even if I have more to off er in the way of advice to those who are able
to work their way into tenure-track positions or jobs that provide full-
time contracts. Looking at the present academic world, it is hard not
to believe that this middle class—so to speak—is shrinking, as tenured
positions become less of a standard and more of a prize than they were
when I entered university life. I will make frequent reference to the
growing plight of the academic underclass, who are growing in both
number and visibility.
College and university professors consistently rank their occupa-
tional satisfaction at the top or near the top when compared with other
occupations. Th at comes as no surprise to most of us in the business
because most academics have great freedom in arranging their pro-
fessional lives, we derive tremendous satisfaction from teaching and
mentoring, and we are fortunate enough to spend much of our lives
pursuing our intellectual and research passions. Finding fulfi llment in
academia calls for very diff erent strategies in elite universities and col-
leges that create demanding but rewarding conditions for producing
research and in teaching institutions and colleges that are not designed
to promote research and scholarship. Inevitably, many young academ-
ics begin their careers believing that they want to do scholarly work but
end up gaining their principal gratifi cation from teaching.
Whether a career in higher education will continue to merit a high
level of job satisfaction in the future is a topic on which there is much
speculation and a lot of disagreement. I am no more competent at
crystal-ball gazing than some of my readers. I have seen an enormous
amount of change in my own lifetime in how universities are organized
and run; there is every reason to expect the relentless bureaucratiza-
tion of higher education to continue. Tenured positions as a fraction of
all academic jobs have been shrinking even as the slots in higher edu-
cation have grown. Inequality—long a prominent feature of higher ed-
ucation—has increased, widening the distance between the haves and
the have-nots. Distance learning, for-profi t institutions, state and local
controls on higher education, the availability of government funding,
and many other forces could change the academic landscape in ways
that will alter many of today’s truths. Yet the Cassandra warnings of a
bleak future for academia are anything but new. Many features of aca-
demic life have persisted over the course of the past century and prob-
preface · ix