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Kevin Vranes has a phud in Physical Ocean- ography and Cli- matology. He now studies sci- ence policy and politics at the CSTPR. (More in the about.)
email: kevin {/at/} nosenada.org
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Category: Academia
Posted on: September 14, 2006 12:44 PM, by Kevin Vranes
There I was, across from the offices of the Environmental Studies department at CU. A colleague I was visiting pointed out the scene pictured below and I knew I had to post it. I only had my cellphone cam, so please excuse the quality. My colleague tells me that this is not a unique situation -- the "tenured" list is always empty while the other boards (even ones I didn't picture) are full. (Click for a larger pic.)
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Comments
# 1 | apalazzo | September 14, 2006 2:52 PM
(Although it's cliche) A picture is worth a thousand words. It is early though, fall is the time of year that faculty positions get posted ...
# 2 | Davis | September 14, 2006 6:41 PM
I like to think of academia as a big pyramid scheme, with graduate students at the bottom, post docs in the middle, and tenure-track faculty at the top.
# 3 | Jackie | September 14, 2006 7:56 PM
Silly boy, the good jobs aren't advertised. They're passed around through the network of the 'in crowd.'
# 4 | kevin v | September 14, 2006 11:18 PM
nice to see you, Jackie - you should come around more often. regarding the little girl shirt post: that's a much better alternative to the bullshit t-shirt I saw while walking down Pearl St in Boulder a few months ago: "I'm too cute to do math"
# 5 | Jackie | September 15, 2006 6:49 AM
Yeah, it's a great shirt.
I noticed ScienceBlogs just went from 49 to 48 blogs. Any idea who the missing blogger is?
# 6 | kevin v | September 15, 2006 5:34 PM
hmmm...I know nothing specific but it seems it is the chemblog: http://www.scienceblogs.com/chemblog/
good catch
# 7 | Western Geologist | September 17, 2006 6:13 PM
I don't think the situation is as bleak as that in the earth sciences. Schools advertising tenure track positions certainly don't have to beg for applications, but there are a decent number of jobs (and there have been for the last few years too). The Geological Society of America's Classified Ads have quite a few positions, and quickly scanning the titles I see 6 or 7 environmental science jobs. Maybe part of the problem is that the folks in the CU office aren't as prompt as they should be about posting new positions.
Of course there will certainly be a lot of applicants for each of those positions, and actually getting a tenure track position is still really difficult. Not to mention the academic job application procedure is something I absolutely despise. In my case it almost always consisted of laboring over an application and dropping it into a communications black hole only to get a rejection form letter to add to my collection six months later.