This Is the End

It's time to shut this blog down. I'll leave up the content, but my time as Adunct Nate Silber is over. I spent a long time studying how the job market in German works, but I can't do it anymore. When I started, no one really knew and no one was tracking the data that mattered. By the time I figured out how it worked, it was already too late. Now that we know how it works, no one with any influence over the profession actually cares.

So here's where we are. About 25 tenure-track jobs in German each year, tendency falling. Plenty of NTT jobs to place new PhDs in, enough to keep a lot of people on the treadmill for years, but not enough for a stable career. The grad programs are still churning out 75 new PhDs each year. And the biggest contingent of new TT faculty is still being hired from outside the system, from Germany or from comp lit or elsewhere.

For 2010-2019, there have been a handful of grad programs with TT placement rates topping out at 50% (Cornell, Harvard, U Mass, Virginia, Texas, and the UNC/Duke conglomerate). Wait another five years, and it will be a different set of programs. Not long ago, Princeton was at the top; now it's down to 37%. You could be accepted to an Ivy League grad program and still face an abysmal placement rate (Columbia at 15%, Brown at 0%), or a big prestigious private university (Vanderbilt at 13%), or a big public flagship (Wisconsin, 40 PhDs, 20% TT placement rate).

Your overall chances of getting a TT job are 30%. You're still likely to fail, but perhaps you will fail better than we did.

Closing the books on 2016-17

For tenure-track academic hiring in German, 2016-17 marks a new absolute low. To find a year where fewer positions were advertised, you would have to look back at least sixty years to the 1950s or earlier. The record low number of TT jobs advertised on opening day (7) was matched by the lowest number of TT jobs advertised all year (17), and by the earliest posting of the season's last TT job ad (in week 11, surpassing the previous record of week 15 in 2013). This year will also mark a new absolute low in the number of TT hires, as one of the 17 searches (Hamilton College) was downgraded to a VAP search; the maximum possible number of TT hires, 16, is lower than the previous low of 19 hires set in 2009-10.

That's just looking at the MLA/ADFL job information list. If you look at listings from all sources as reflected in the German jobs wiki (with 11 years of data going back to 2006), the situation is worse. The previous low, 27 TT jobs from all sources (from last year, 2015-2016), was in line with the number of TT searches from 2009-2015 (average of 33). So the current year marks a drop of 37% drop compared to the previous all-time low in the space of one year. One more time: a 37% drop compared to the previous all-time low in the space of one year.

For non-tenure-track hiring, it was another solid year: 41 positions advertised in the ADFL/MLA JIL before it closed, fifth highest and just a few places out of third (43 in 2007) and even on pace to set an all-time record just a few months back. But the VAP market went flat unexpectedly early this year. As far as NTT positions from all sources, 2016-17 is another solid year: 55 advertised NTT searches, just above average (54 for the years 2006-17).

The lack of late VAP hiring is something of a danger signal, as it suggests that late-spring/early-summer language department budgets are under pressure and the advertising of TT positions in the fall may be impacted.

Our profession is not in good health.

2016-17

Unless something drastic happens - and it's almost May, so nothing drastic is going to happen - this year will mark a new absolute low in the number of tenure-track jobs in German Studies on the MLA job list: 17. That's two positions less than even 2009, the previous record for all-time miserable job markets. Of those 17 searches, one was canceled and converted into a NTT search.

Speaking of which: 2016-17 has been another banner year for non-tenure track jobs, with the number of ads near or at record levels all year. We're already at 39, with several more weeks still to go in a NTT hiring calendar that drags on into June and July. We'll likely end up in the range of such overheated NTT hiring years like 2005-2007, and beating the absolute record of 2014 is still a possibility.

So to recap: The economic recovery since 2008 has not led to a recovery in tenure-track hiring in German (or in any of the languages, actually). The job market in German is not going to make a comeback. There are, however, quite a few opportunities for you to stay in academia by moving every 1-3 years until you either strike out on the market or find yourself no longer geographically mobile (as long as you can live on $36-42,000 per year, including unreimbursed moving expenses).

Job Market Opening Day 2015

How many full-time tenure-track or open-rank jobs in German Studies will be posted to the MLA Job Information List in 2015-16? Take your pick. Seeing how 2014 went, your pick is probably as good as mine.

18. The historical average since 2003 is that 54.4% of all TT jobs show up on opening day. As of today, there are 10 such jobs. 10 / .544 = just over 18.

24. Ten jobs isn't the absolute worst we've ever seen on opening day, but it's close. Other similar years include 2009 (10), 2010 (11), and 2014 (9). The average result from those years is 24 jobs by the time the list closes.

25. The percentage posted on opening day has been declining. If the trend since 2008 (see graph) continues, we're only seeing 40.6% of the jobs today. 10 / .406 = almost 25.

Percentage of TT jobs posted on opening day, 2008-2014, showing declining trend

30. Going back to 2008, there have been on average around 30 jobs each year. The last two years saw 28 and 29 jobs, respectively. If this is an average year, then we'll get around 30 jobs by the end, maybe a few less.

32. Last year, only 31% of the jobs showed up on opening day. If the same thing happens this year, we'll get up to 32 jobs.

My pick: 25. We'll see a reversion to the mean, and 15 more jobs will appear before the list closes, most likely before the end of February. With a bit of optimism and wishful thinking, 2015 will end up in a tie for the second-worst year in German job market history. I would love to be wrong and to see many more jobs appear, but even an outlandish fantasy like 35 jobs would only move this year into sixth-worst in job market history.

The jobpocalypse of 2014

On the opening day of the 2014-15 MLA/ADFL job information list for German, there were a total of nine ads for tenure-track (9) or open-rank (0) jobs. This is a new record for the least number of TT jobs advertised on opening day, beating out such lackluster years as 2009 (11), 2010 (11), 2013 (14), and 2012 (15).

Between 2003 and 2013, an average of 57% of all TT jobs that would appear on the ADFL job list appeared on opening day. The average for 2008-2013, at 52%, is little different.

Based on those numbers, we can expect a total of 16 or 17 TT jobs to be advertised in the JIL by the end of AY 2014-15. The last TT job ad may not appear until February or March, or even later.

If the predicted total of 17 jobs appearing in the MLA/ADFL job information list holds, 2014 will be the worst year on the job market for German in generations, somewhat worse even than 2009 and a level not seen since 1955, when "Personalia" recorded a total of 11 new tenure-track appointments. Your advisor, your advisor's advisor, and perhaps your advisor's advisors' advisor never saw a job market this bad.

From 2006-2013, an average of 90% of all positions were advertised in the JIL. We might therefore expect one or two additional TT jobs to be advertised outside of the JIL.

There were also four non-TT jobs advertised, but there is no way to predict the number of ads that will eventually appear, as they tend to show up at a steady but irregular rate through the summer.

How to shrink the Ph.D. in German Studies. Part two

The first half of this post identified our target—41.3 Ph.D.s in German per year, less than half of the current number—and the reasons for making this our goal. This post will lay out one way to get there.

To establish program-specific targets, I started with the number of each program’s average number of tenure-track placements per year since 2008. Then I added bonuses (worth a quarter of a TT job) to those programs with post-2008 TT placement rates at or above 30% (Princeton, Texas, Penn State, Cincinnati, U Washington, and Massachusetts), and an additional similar bonus to those programs that seem to be operating efficiently (Cincinnati, Florida, Harvard, Virgina, UC Davis, Stanford, U Pennsylvania, Minnesota, and Illinois). Then I applied geographic bonuses based on regional balance; schools in the Southwest and Southeast get a bonus and the Plains schools suffer no penalty, while the New England, Great Lakes, and Mid East schools take a quarter-point penalty and the Far West schools take a half-point penalty. I multiplied the result by 1.43 (based on the ratio of Ph.D.s to TT jobs in 1981-2007). I didn’t apply the outcome mechanically, but instead used the resulting figures as a guide. The table below summarizes the results.



The path to 41.3 Ph.D.s per year is littered with corpses and the emaciated figures of the gaunt survivors. I present the plan here only as one possible variation on the least bad option for restoring some balance to the job market in German Studies.

The programs that don’t have to change a thing. Princeton, Texas, Cincinnati, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Florida, and Tennessee can keep on doing what they’re doing. Their record of TT placement and/or their geographical good fortune mean that they’re already producing about the right number of Ph.D.s each year that the market can bear from them. Florida and Tennessee seem too small to me to be sustainable, but presumably they know something I don’t. If they can avoid growing, then they can keep going.  North Carolina and Duke have already done the hard work of combining programs, so the future UNC/Duke program can continue at a rate slightly above UNC by itself right now, but not as high as UNC and Duke added together.

The dirty work’s already done. The easiest cuts are the ones that have already happened. The average number of Ph.D.s for 2008-2013 includes some now defunct programs, including Iowa, Oregon, Pittsburgh, Nebraska, and Utah. That’s already 1.2 Ph.D.s per year on average.

Close the programs that are too small. Brown, CUNY, UC Santa Barbara, Connecticut, and Purdue: I’m sorry. You had a good run. But your doctoral programs produce Ph.D.s in such low numbers that they’re either tiny, or bad at turning grad students into Ph.D.s, and your graduates don’t seem to be finding TT jobs. It’s not much, but we need the 1.7 Ph.D.s per year that you contribute together.

I’m assuming that 1 Ph.D. per year is around the lower limit for the size of a healthy program. If you admit only 3 M.A. students each year in a 2-year program, of whom 1.5 (on average) continue on to the doctoral program for two years of doctoral coursework, followed by three years of dissertation writing (with .5 students from each year stopping at the ABD stage), then you have a total program enrollment of 12 grad students (6 M.A. + 3 doctoral + 3 writing dissertations), including 9 grad students in coursework. If students are offered little choice on electives and the dean is understanding, that might be enough enrollment for the seminars to make.

The stillborn. Colorado, what the world needs now is not more Ph.D. programs in German. I know, you’re doing innovative things, but we need less innovation and more immolation. Your plan is to put all your grad students on the five-year plan to cut down on grad school dropout rates. But we’ve only got 41.3 Ph.D.s to award each year. I know your region is underserved, but three years of efficiently mass-producing Ph.D.s in German will serve your region’s needs for the next two decades. Arizona’s program is too close to graduating its first Ph.D.s to shut it down now, but it belongs on this list, too. Allowing one Arizona Ph.D. per year means shutting down some other program that probably deserves to continue.

Close the departments that are too redundant as departments. This is the list where the hurt begins: Georgetown, three more UC schools, Illinois-Chicago, Maryland, Michigan State, NYU, Northwestern, and Wayne State. Between them, they account for 10.7 Ph.D.s per year. There are several excellent programs on this list, but none of them have impressive placements rates, and all of them face too much local competition. Keeping Arizona (or any other program) alive at a minimal rate of 1 Ph.D. per year means losing the legacy of Heidi Byrnes to SLA in German Studies. Keeping Georgetown means losing someone else. That’s how painful these cuts are going to be.

Modest reduction. People who know the local programs better might argue that it would make more sense, say, to keep Georgetown but close Rutgers, and it’s quite possible that they’re right. Some of the programs on the following list benefit from the demise of their neighbors, possibly unjustly. Programs that can meet their targets with only modest adjustments include Rutgers, Johns Hopkins, Virginia, Stanford, UC Davis (or some other UC school outside of Berkeley), Penn State, Kansas, and Vanderbilt, who need to produce only one Ph.D. less every two years, on average. This only adds up to 3.1 Ph.D.s less per year.

Major reduction. Other programs need to graduate around one Ph.D. less every year. These are programs of significant size that need to become programs of modest size: U Washington, Ohio State, Indiana, Cornell, Illinois, Michigan, Harvard, and Columbia. Together it results in 7.3 Ph.D.s less per year.

Over-producing Ph.D. programs that have to face the music. The biggest cuts have to come out of the largest programs that have modest to poor placement rates in order to get the job market back into balance: Chicago, U Pennsylvania, Yale, Washington U, Wisconsin, and Berkeley, who all need to produce around two Ph.D.s less per year. Their reductions together provide another 11.0 Ph.D.s less per year.

The UNC-Duke project might provide a model for programs to follow. Georgetown and Johns Hopkins could choose to partner with Maryland, for example. Or Illinois with UI-Chicago and Purdue with Indiana. Michigan partnering with Michigan State and Wayne State seems like a logical step. NYU and CUNY could talk to Columbia (NYU actually has better placement rates than Columbia, but Columbia has a better name to trade off of). Brown is not far from Harvard, and Connecticut is not far from U Massachusetts. Berkeley and Stanford are within commuting distance. UC Los Angeles, Irvine, Santa Barbara, and Davis could set up a consortium. (Davis has the better placement record, but with Berkeley/Stanford up north, it might turn out more feasible to have a program based in southern California.)

This is the least bad future for our discipline, and the most equitable way that I can find to distribute the pain. It leaves 31 doctoral programs in German Studies still functioning, distributed in all regions of the country.

There are other options. One could let the biggest programs survive at their current size and close all the smaller programs. That option leaves only 16 doctoral programs still operating. Or we could do nothing and let a Ph.D. in German Studies turn into a career crapshoot reserved for those with a significant trust to fall back on. We can imagine different methodologies that value different things and arrive at a different list of casualties and survivors, or even more other undesirable possible futures for doctoral-level German Studies in the United States. Unfortunately, one of them will become reality whether we like it or not because the job market of 1981-2007, the one that your adviser thought was bad when she got her first job but that actually looks pretty good in retrospect, is never coming back.