Month: July 2023

True Fact:  A recent study of Ivy-Plus colleges (the Ivies plus Stanford, MIT, Duke, and the University of Chicago) found that legacy applicants to those institutions were five times more likely to be admitted than non-legacy applicants with similar qualifications (Chronicle of Higher Education, July 24th online).  

Around the country, academics were stunned. 

“I’m shocked to my very core!”, remarked a long-time Harvard faculty member upon hearing the news.  “Who knew that the six generations of Pewter-Mastersons that attended our school were related?”

“Gadzooks!”, exclaimed Dartmouth President Sian Beilock.  “I had been wondering why our student body was so wealthy and white.  I just assumed that low-income minority high schoolers were put off by the frigid winters up here in New Hampshire.  Of course, our traditional recruitment pitch — ‘Dartmouth: We’ll Freeze Your Ass Off’ — probably doesn’t help.”

At Princeton, Professor Emeritus Noreen Fenderdent recalled that for decades she had been puzzled by the number of male students in her classes who wore bow ties, salmon-colored khakis, and Bass Weejuns with no socks.  “Could they have been legacies?”, she asks.  “These young men tended to be whitish.  Or at least I thought they were.  During my career I tried to make it a practice of not seeing color when I looked at people.  Okay, maybe sometimes I did.”

If elite schools are forced to curtail legacy admissions, alumni/ae donations could plummet.  Indeed, Yale President Peter Salovey warns that such an outcome would lead to reduced funding for student activities at his school:  “We’d probably have to eliminate our junior varsity Cribbage team, or at least replace the diamond-encrusted cribbage-board pegs we currently use with cheap plastic ones.  And the annual spring trip of the Antique Fountain Pen Club to the Vienna Montblanc Exhibition would, in all likelihood, become an every-other-year event.  I won’t lie to you; things could get tough around here.”

Yes, they could.

A decade from now, as Yale-educated hedge-fund managers tuck their children into bed at night, they might find themselves whispering to their little ones, “I may not be able to guarantee you an elite college degree, but I promise: you will have many, many ponies.”

 

As Jennifer Furlong and Stacy Hartman point out in the July 21st issue of the Chronicle of Higher Education, writing the cover letter for your first faculty job application can be a challenge.  Furlong and Hartman offer excellent advice for tackling this task, but they do omit a number of tips widely recommended by experts in the field.  Here are 7 of them:

Downplay geographical preferences.  Don’t say that you want to teach at Duke because your aging parents live in nearby Chapel Hill and your mother has a serious drinking problem that you need to keep tabs on.  And under no circumstances should you send the Search Committee a photo of your mom.  

Promise that you won’t be a complainer.  State categorically that you will never grouse about the shortage of faculty parking, the 15-credit-hour-per-semeser teaching load, or the mango/yak incense stick that the secretary burns each day in the department office.  Include a short video that shows you crossing your heart as you make these promises. 

Avoid controversial topics.  Even if you feel strongly about the matter, resist the temptation to indicate in your letter that you think it would have been better if Bruce Jenner had never made the decision to transition to Caitlyn Jenner.  

If you describe your flaws, be honest.  For the love of God, don’t bullshit readers with self-praise disguised as critique (e.g., “I admit it, I’m a perfectionist.”).  Far better to be unflinchingly candid (“I should shower more often.”  “I fabricated a bit of the data in my doctoral dissertation.”  “I once purchased a voodoo doll to put a curse on a grad school classmate I envied.  The next day she was hit by a truck.”).

Don’t make threats.  This should be a no-brainer.  It’s never a good idea to intimate that “something bad” might happen to one or more members of the Search Committee if you’re not offered a job.  

Be linguistically flexible.  Inform the Search Committee that you’re comfortable using the phrase “lived experience” in everyday conversation on campus if that’s consistent with the culture of the university, but that you’re also okay with employing the less redundant term, “experience,” if that’s the norm.  

Display sensitivity to local/regional context.  For example, if you’re applying for a faculty job in Texas, be sure to mention that you look forward to packing a firearm in class, and that some of your fondest memories are of Grandma Tess taking you hunting at the neighborhood dog park when you were a kid.  

There’s a terrific position out there in academia waiting for you.  Start writing that cover letter.