Ms. Mentor

Sometimes You're the Problem

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Question (from "Laird"): I'm an ex-scholar who'd like to return and teach English -- but all of the institutions want three letters of reference, besides a cover letter and a CV. Being a businessman for many years, I do the math. For 100 job applicants, that's 300 people writing letters. What a colossal waste.

Does academe hold people's time in such low regard that they can make this demand? I either apply, adding a snide, "I cannot in good conscience ask references to take time out from their busy days to write letters on my behalf," or I do not bother to apply for those positions. Am I missing something?

Question (from "Neo"): For two years, I've sought employment in English at any college besides the one where I'm an adjunct. Most universities want those who are "published." But with finishing course work and teaching, how am I expected to find the time to publish? Can't I get a job without having to do that, too?

Answer: Ms. Mentor can see it all now. You arrive for your interview at the most posh hotel in town, where you're met by the local chapter of Plutocrats R Us -- millionaire alumni, billionaire builders, all dropping by on their private jets to meet you. Their female companions, dripping diamonds, whisk your wife off to fashionista spas -- while you are wined and dined and begged to consider a job paying a measly $3-million. Plus, of course, the summer house, private schools for the youngsters, and Jaguars for all.

And you didn't have to submit references.

And you didn't have to publish a thing.

Because you're a top-of-the-line football coach.

Such wooing and swooning won't happen to Laird or Neo. Stellar acts of teaching and lit crit won't net the bucks or the prestige that Nick Saban brought to Louisiana State University (until the Miami Dolphins stole him for $5-million).

Football also gives its fans a history of ecstatic moments, like Doug Flutie's miraculous Hail Mary pass at the end of Boston College's 1984 season. But no one thrills the young with tales of "my interpretive breakthrough with Foucault" ("I was polishing the ceramic swan when I had a flash of blinding insight. ...").

And so, when you apply for a job in academe, and you're not Nick Saban, you have to follow the rules. Every year thousands of Ph.D.'s seek tenure-track jobs in English, and only an estimated 40 percent will ever get them. Many, like Ms. Mentor's correspondents, will get sent to the showers early.

Faced with so many candidates, search committees have to screen ruthlessly. Incomplete application packets or ones addressed to the wrong institution or the wrong person will be dumped. Misspellings may get you weeded out, as will failure to sign your letter (you're not paying attention).

And Laird, with his snide little note, may be a high-minded, independent thinker -- but he'll come across as an arrogant know-it-all. (Academics do have their pride.) Sending reference letters is a prerequisite, like showing up for work fully clothed. Without the minimum, you're thrown naked into the cold.

The winners who do get interviews are the ones with an extra flair factor. They may have laudatory references, or teaching awards, or high-level research, or software achievements. Or maybe they just have good timing.

Ms. Mentor most admires those who've done service learning and worked to improve the world outside the groves of academe. But nothing trumps publication.

Even a small book review shows that you've joined the intellectual conversation that is part of your profession. Journal articles showcasing your unique discoveries are even better. Publication is the way you stick your head up over the savannah and shout, "Academic World, look at me!"

The world isn't apt to look at Neo, buried under paperwork and offering nothing special -- for every Ph.D. in the pack is smart and has a degree. Neo needs to stop whining and start prioritizing. If he's spending 10 hours grading a set of papers, he's being too picky and needs timesavers: student group work, peer mentoring, grading for just two or three things. He needs to routinize: errands all in one afternoon; children who pitch in, or at least keep their bedroom doors closed; housemates who will lower their standards for neatness and cleanliness. Writing groups and blogs help, but Neo must also set aside one day a week, or one afternoon a week, or 5 to 6 a.m. every day for professional writing.

Even if he produces only a paragraph of bad off-the-top-of-his-head prose every day, he'll have an article-length draft in a month. Then he can edit and shape it, and get it out to journals in another month or two.

It needn't be perfect, but it needs to be out -- or Neo will drown in the adjunct pool. Or, like many a lively soul Ms. Mentor has known, Neo may realize he doesn't like academic prose. He may try writing op-eds for his local newspaper -- or discover that he has no opinions. (Too boring to be a teacher, rules Ms. Mentor.) Or Neo may decide that the professors he knows best are loathsome people, and he'd rather not grow up to be like them.

Not everyone is cut out for the academic grind, and Ms. Mentor salutes those who realize it and move on to other things. The average American changes careers at least five times in a lifetime, and being mired does nothing except make one feel swampy and fetid.

Unlike football players, academic standouts can be paid for their skills throughout their lives -- but first they've got to suit up for the game. When candidates like Laird and Neo deliberately sabotage themselves, Ms. Mentor cannot sit quietly on the sidelines. She fumes. A lot.

Question: "Professor Dork" has been lying about himself in published columns, claiming he's much more popular, sincere, and generous than I know him to be. How can I choose between roaring laughter and vomiting bile?

Answer: Don't.

SAGE READERS: A recent correspondent urges Ms. Mentor to write an insider's guide for fledgling academics, to be entitled The 100 Most Dysfunctional Academic Environments. Ms. Mentor, charmed and frightened by the idea, invites readers' suggestions. Who might be surveyed for such a deliciously slanderous guide? What questions might be asked? Ms. Mentor will share the most imaginative responses.

As always, Ms. Mentor welcomes rants, gossip, and queries, but rarely answers letters personally. Anonymity is guaranteed, and identifying details are always imaginatively transformed. Subject headings are a must. Ms. Mentor directs anxious readers to her archive and to her tome (below). Many a searing scenario has already been handled with Ms. Mentor's perfect wisdom.