The Public Policy/Administration Jobs Blog provides a forum for job-seekers seeking jobs in public affairs, public policy, and public management programs.
I was just talking to someone informally about a position in PA. This person tells me that they are getting few applications for their positions. This was not a big research one school, so may not be true everywhere.
Still, I see a LOT of PA jobs out there, a lot of schools (especially non-flagship schools) are moving slowly, and I just wonder how many could be out looking.
I hope to see the jobs wiki fill in because I am wondering just where all the PA types are going to come from to fill these jobs?
10:58 is correct. It is very much a buyer's market in PA (as it was last year too). In fact, most PA jobs generally have a shortage of qualified job applicants.
It's starting to become big problem for search committees.
Thanks for posting this. I, too, am following the C of C MPA director search. I heard rumors of contacting for interviews too and assumed it was this position. Is there also an American position?
I stole this idea from the American blog. Maybe it can get things moving in here… Ok kids, time for some spreadsheet cleanup. You know the drill... say what you know about these jobs with deadlines in the ancient past:
Auburn East Carolina Iowa State James Madison Kennesaw State Mississippi State South Dakota UNC-Greensboro
Names, no names, whatever, just give my spreadsheet and the wiki some closure.
CofC has three jobs-MPA director, american behavior, & comparative politics. Closing dates were staggered (not exact) Oct. 1 (behavior), Oct. 15 (MPA), Nov 1 (comparative). Given these dates, I assume they are doing the american position first, etc., etc. However, you never know how these searches work. I do know they searched for american last year and did not hire, so I would think that position is the primary focus, and the others will likely take place after interviews for that position are completed. This is pure speculation however.
I heard that the East Carolina MPA Director search is going forward with calls in early December for interviews in early January. Means they must be moving on their other jobs more quickly.
there are mixed opinions about the "deficit" of PA people in the current market. I doubt this, but let's assume that this is true. If so, what happens: 1) Departments who moved later cancel the searches and hope for the better next year or 2) scrape the bottom of the barrel for as long as they can without vomiting
Depends on school and budget. Some schools hire because they know if they don't they will lose the position. Others can wait as the line is guaranteed. But, I doubt anyone goes with lesser candidate -- most will hire a one year to fill the line and recruit next year.
So if you have PhD, have experience, have a publication record, and teaching and service experience, you should be in pretty good shape...depending upon fit.
For the most part, yes. Some candidates encounter problems when they do not do well presenting themselves, i.e., s/he is not outgoing, very reserved, etc.
For many PA positions outside of top ranked schools (think schools where most students are in-service), you have to have a bit of a personality since you'll be expected to interact with public administrators (mostly state/local civil servants) and be active in local ASPA chapters.
On 3:04, I think it really depends. For example, work experience probably helps at second tier PA programs, but isn't going to get you a whole lot at top tier PA/PP programs. A publication record can be a blessing or a curse... ABDs with the potential to publish high-quality work are more valuable at many schools that somebody with 10 pubs in bad journals (and we all know these exist in PA).
The bottom line that we are all likely to agree to is that somebody with the characteristics pointed out by 3:04 is likely to get *a* job, the question is how *good* it will be.
I agree w/ 7:32. I don't think service or teaching experience is all that valuable at many R1s. Also, in response to 12:49, I think many schools just broaden what they're willing to take in terms of fit. They might be more likely to take somebody who is management instead of finance, or broaden the substantive policy area they're willing to hire. I've seen schools decide to move to other disciplines and decide to hire a sociologist or straight political scientist. Those markets aren't as thin and salaries are lower, so those hires are pretty easy to make.
I think you both are probably right about what you say, but it is a shame. Someone with a very good record that includes excellent teaching, lots of service and outreach, and a good publication record with 10 or so journals should be an asset to any R1 school...particularly if all this was done as an assistant or early associate.
I mean, why shoudn't we value experience over inexperience, when we can get it (given the market...that isn't all that easy)? I know this, of course, depends on what the experience is.
Last, in terms of good and bad journals, this appears to be a lot less defined in PA than in other fields. Some find JPART and JPAM to be tops, but they have very very low acceptance rates. Others see PAR as the leading journal in the field. Then there is Admin. and Society, Governance, Politics and Policy, PBF, etc. Others are interdisciplinary and publish in lots of places.
I don't know, but to me, someone with a defined research agenda who publishes actively in peer review journals, and who can also teach very well and be active in their field inside and outside the university would be a stellar candidate.
This R1 would take them quickly and smile devilishly at those who turned their nose up at them.
There are not enough candidates to go around for all the schools hiring. If candidates move from one school to another, that just delays the problem a year.
8:27 makes good sense. A lot of it seems to be prestige of PhD institution, too. My opinion (and others might disagree) is that it takes probably 6 or more years to "publish out of" a low-reputation PhD program. It's doubly hard to do that when you're saddled with 10 preps and a 3-3 (or higher) load.
Very interesting. I find the broadening the definition of fit approach to be the most rational, should any candidate shortage arise. Let's face it - and I fully realize the uproar this will cause - academic departments are among the organizations where "fit" matters the least. If your work relates to mine and we collaborate - great. If your work does not relate to mine and we don't colaborate - great as well. Just publish your papers, teach your classes, and be a good scholar overall. Sure, there are moment moments when a particular topical specialization is desireable, but getting exactly that one rarely has the urgency that is often implied. And all that other stuff about "getting along" and "collegiality" seems to be kind of superficial and doesn't matter anyway unless you hire an actual nutcase, but that could be impossible to detect upfront (psychotic types can be very charismatic and charming). Our job is to hire the best possible candidate, that will help the department move up, not a drinking buddy.
Well said. Prestige of PhD matters a lot. Going to the right school in the first place makes a big difference. Reputation of your advisor and connections help a great deal when recruiting...plus people know they are well trained because those before them were.
That said, schools should be careful and not miss the person who choose a lower ranked school or who started somewhere and tried to publish their way out. A person who publishes at a liberal arts or lower tiered state school can be a real gem. They know how to teach, relate to students, they do mentoring, and teach high loads. If they publish in lower tiered journals, or at all, it is fantastic.
Watch out for that type of person if you are on a search committee. They have proven themselves and imagine what they might do with a 2-2 load, graduate student support? They might also just win all your teaching awards too.
The truth is that a person who starts attends a lower ranked PHD school generally takes a job at a lower ranked school. They then work twice as hard to get to the same place as a person who starts out at a top tier program.
Again, watch out for that type of person on the market.
I like the think that any school that is NASPAA accredited should be more than a publication factory. We are charged with training the next generation of public leaders as well. Arguably, this is the most important function of our job and our existence. Good scholarship informs teaching but does not necessitate good teaching and our research (if you read the journals) does not necessarily inform practice either.
As for fit, it does matter as NASPAA demands more accountability as to how we produce students and for what we teach them. This is true of most accrediting organizations as well.
As far as moving up, what exactly does that mean in PA? The rankings are crap. They are reputational only. I would think it would be more important to attend every conference possible, schmooze your tail off, and send off umpteen thousands of announcements (like one school in the northeast appears to do) to "move up" (smile).
I don't know...get the best person you can get, but I like the whole package.
Oh...and please...you hire the "a-hole" so I don't have to (smile)....sorry...
I don't think the rankings are "crap" really - they are just one-dimensional (reputation). The sample they use is a reasonable sample for such purposes, and I generally agree with where most schools land in the list. Does that mean that a master's level *education* at, say, Harvard is necessarily better than the MPA program at Cleveland State? Of course not. But it means that the faculty are probably more reputable at the former, which has consequences for funding, PhD student placement, and even impact on practice.
I also wonder to what extent NASPAA standards really even matter. I have been at three institutions now that are longstanding NASPAA-accredited programs, and in every one the emphasis has been on "backfilling" to make it seem like what we do is a rational response to NASPAA guidelines. There is a lot more effort put into artfully satisfying accreditation requirements ex post than thoughtfully considering NASPAA standards ex ante.
I think the rankings might matter and adequately reflect what we know about the top 10 schools...maybe top 15, but not that rest. I also question how well the capture the real difference between the top 10 and the top 30.
They are pretty horrible though and are based on the ratings of Deans and Chairs at PA schools. They are given a list of schools and a likert scale of reputation...that's it. It might be very easy to rate the first 10 or the places where you sent PhD students, but does that get at all that much in the end?
When it comes down to it, it might measure the reputation of the faculty overall...and would reflect favorably on a collection of those faculty in one place...but it also measures those who people know from conferences, from serving on executive committees, from doing service work in the profession.
In the end though, what does this say about the other 100 + schools that offer an excellent education, produce excellent students, and who have faculty with a solid record of scholarship?
I still think it is primarily marketing and schmoozing and having the resources to do this well.
As for NASPAA, I agree on the backfilling that you note. I bet that is how most approach it. But it does have an impact. When a site visit team notices a program that does not offer the classes it says it does, or does not offer personnel management or ethics, it helps drive resources to hire in these areas.
I think they do have an impact in terms of accountability for what an MPA or MPP program is supposed to offer and be.
One thing to consider though, some higher ranked PA schools have absolutely dreadful poli sci rankings. That's why the whole ranking thing becomes more gray in PA (especially if it's a pa job in a poli sci department). For example, if I were on a search committee hiring for an urban policy expert I would choose a Ph.D. from Cleveland State over Harvard (based solely on urban affairs rankings) (And I'm certainly not trying to insult any ivy leaguers out there. I'm just trying to determine the worth of school rank.).
And always remember, the candidate's record easily trumps the reputation of their ph.d. school.
From my limited experience, the good students are exactly the same everywhere, regardless of the ranking of the university. The only difference between ivy league type schools and lesser schools is that the unfortunate students that are 'challenged' are in smaller proportion in the ivies. So I'd never assume that anybody is a star because he is from harvard or look down on somebody from a lesser school. Morons and good catches live in both of these habitats.
I think you're right that there are good students at most programs, particularly students who are constrained geographically and perhaps unable to move to do a PhD at Syracuse or Georgia. Having said that, I have noticed a stark difference in the socialization that students at top schools get compared to others. For example, students at top PA programs get travel support, are on research assistantships that can yield publications (unlike teaching or policy assistantships), and learn the rules of the game early and well.
I wonder how much socialization predicts success as a junior professor? My guess would be a good bit, if we define success as publishing.
I think many of the interviews scheduled are not going to be done until for another couple of weeks or so... I am thinking offers will start going out by the first or second week of December. Maybe a dead time until then, although lots of people seem to be starting to interview, according to the Wiki.
I'm not on a search committee, but at least somebody's saying something on this board! If all 5:18 wants is job rumors, s/he's not going to have a whole lot to read.
I've got to disagree a bit with 12:58 above who said "One thing to consider though, some higher ranked PA schools have absolutely dreadful poli sci rankings."
Indiana has great Poli Sci and great PA. Georgia has great PA and pretty good Poli Sci. Syracuse has great PA and decent Poli Sci. Texas A&M has great PA and Poli Sci. Let's not get those brush strokes too wide here.
UVa is an interesting case, isn't it? Lots of money, lots of prestige, proximity to DC... You have to wonder how it couldn't do well with that formula. They'll have to make strategic hires. Some might disagree with me on this, but I think a key example of a new school gone bad is the Clinton School. They've hired a bunch of practitioners and there's no credible research agenda there. It might be an exciting place to get an MPA, but I'm betting the PA/PP community is going to reject that model, which could have some consequences for program building.
As an applicant, I can say that the Clinton school is a huge turnoff. And I say that as a person that thinks that all research should have obvious practical relevance. They can go sit and tell each other war stories over a night cap all they want.
I dont know much about how the Clinton school has been implemented in practice, but I really liked the design and think that programs could do a helluva lot more to learn from at least what the "model" tells us, if nothing else.
I agree, with all that has been said, but a mix of the practitioner and the academic...or the academic who is rewarded (and not punished) for civic engagement work...is valuable.
I like the idea of public service projects, engaging the student with real world experience, and learning from doing when possible...BUT...you must have the nuts and bolts there empirically and academically...or you get JUST war stories.
IF such a model, in practice, is not credible, then that is what NASPAA accreditation guidelines should help improve. This is why I still think NASPAA is valuable.
I say SCs go ahead and interview over their thanksgiving/christmas dinners. I'm bringing the wine. And the powerpoints. At least if somebody chokes you'll know it's the turkey.
Who is updating the wiki, and since when has it come under the auspice of one person? There might be a couple of factual errors there that someone has tried to change and this "author" has changed them back...that's why it's on a wiki...so we can all contribute...
I don't think the Wiki has an author... Anybody can update it. I think somebody has offered to post changes for people who can't figure out how to block their IP address, since the "Activities" link on the Wiki will otherwise show the IP address of the last update (e.g., people can figure out who is updating, which makes it not anonymous). I have made updates since that link was put at the top of the page, and nobody has altered them.
I believe the kentucky started with the health policy position. Then, they will move onto the management position, followed by the finance positions. It's a rumor, so if you take it seriously, well...
Jeez...it seems it seems that the market and employers are not synchronized. I would be looking for the finance or budgeting position first. There are so very very few out there, lots of folks want them, and they will just plain be gone if you don't get to them fast.
Maybe what we are seeing in terms of how slow things are going is lack of applications, questionable mid-year budgets (due to the economic downturn) and the like.
On the latter, I would think that you would want to hire fast...or risk losing the line.
I totally agree. Attracting public finance candidates is very hard these days. It seems like there are way more health policy candidates out there than public finance candidates (I could be wrong though).
Just look at U's that are hiring this year for public finance positions - many of them couldn't fill the position last year, because there is a shortage of good candidates.
A school might make an early offer in a field like health policy if they know who they want and they were afraid of losing the candidate to other schools moving early. This happens all the time in the polisci market
Why would things move slow because of low number of applications? I would expect the opposite - the lower the number, the faster you move to get the good ones; the greater the number, the less you care how fast you get to it. huh?
True dat about public finance in general and its implications for hiring strategy, but don't forget that Kentucky already has lots and lots of finance people; so they don't absolutely need to fill finance positions.
On another topic, beats me why schools persist in the public finance hiring hysteria. Sure, that's an essential class to teach, but there are many more qualified individuals out there, other than newly minted PhDs expecting to spend their lives doing research on that, that can teach this, including certain breed of practicioners.
There's a reason why economises consider the finance positions to be a big step down - it's not rocket science (or economics, anyway)
A minimum requirement of applications...that is so arbitrary. I mean, come on, if that were the case, what would you do if you were looking for, say, a diversity hire.
I have all this stuff in my head about crosstabs with 0's in the cells and stuff.
Come on folks...apply, apply so we can get some movement! :)
some schools require a minimum number of applications before an offer can be made.
Wow, that's probably one of the dumbest requirements I've encountered. Or maybe I am dumb and don't understand it. But seriously, (Assuming that you have a set of qualified candidates you are happy with, and the position is advertised properly), how could it possibly matter what is the total number of applicants?
I am a black woman at an absolutely top school and do not have 15 interviews. I have two, so please do not pull the race/gender card and think that anglo men cannot compete. At my schools, publications seem to count for an awful lot. I think if you have four publications that is VERY impressive, and you will do well!
Well, if that's true, eeo requirements then are designed by Morons. There are 5-6 (good) public finance students on the market. If the number of applications can block a search, this could hypothetically mean that none of them will be offered a job, even though there will be tens of schools who would like to hire them. Ridiculous.
why are finance positions important? do we forget that the budget doc is the most important piece of legislation passed by governments each year??? There is a big difference between someone who can 'teach' a finance course, and someone who is a finance person. Any old hack can pretend to teach just about anything, but if you want someone in your department to really teach and research in that field you need someone with those expertise...and unfortunately there just aren't enough of them out there.
Exactly! So I would have probably jumped in the water a week after the deadline of my job add to get someone in that field.
From what I can tell on the wiki, South Carolina was among the first to move on their budget/finance jobs...the looked last year too...sounds like they have learned.
The "minimum number of applicants" rule is ridiculous, I agree, but (sadly) no more ridiculous than countless other HR regulations on academic hiring.
I actually think what happens more often is that SCs don't see 3-5 good people in the pool, and knowing that some of the top people in the pool are likely to either drop out prior to interviews or wind up taking another offer, they decide to hold off another year and "start earlier."
Having worked at several universities and chaired more than a few search committees, I never had a "minimum rule". The one time a search committee decided to close a search, a combination of factors -- small pool, timing (too late in hiring season), salary was not going to be competitive, etc. -- determined the termination of the search.
I suspect the slow moving process this year is due to not enough high quality applicants. This is a function of many things and includes among these, less market re-entry, e.g., those in third year of appointment explore market, and less confidence in ABDs finishing as promised (as many places are more and more reluctant to go with an ABD that cannot show evidence of finishing 'by May'). Plus, there seem to be more hires at associate and full this year than years past (though may be my misperception), so things may break later as people begin to make decisions. Just my $.02.
While here, while I doubt it since it is so close to the holiday break, have any departments announced new hires?
News about MPA Director positions at Kennesaw, East Carolina, College of Charleston? I see where calls have been made for these, so who is on the lists?
The Wiki says that Clark-Muntean is interviewing at USC. I have third-hand [but reliable] info. that David Pitts (Georgia PhD) is interviewing there as well.
They may not get a chance... We're interviewing him, too, and I think he's on at least 3 other short lists. Other SC folks: Who else seems to be interviewing multiple places?
I dare the SCs begin to start bluntly discuss candidates here - ones that interview, or ones that simply look good, or bad. That would be an excellent read, given the observance of basic politeness and decency of course, in spite of the anonimity. I would start, with Muntean, but I'm not on a SC so there's no point.
As interesting as it might be, I would just as soon SCs keep their mouths shut. It's one thing for them to talk about ABDs, but another thing to talk about assistant professors who may or may not have communicated being on the market to their departments. As an assistant professor on the market (secretly), I would hope the SCs wouldn't advertise my interview, positive or negative.
Avellaneda would be a stellar choice for USC. She is a very talented individual who would do wonders for the public management side of USC's school. Pitts, I think is going to be a hot commodity anywhere he interviews. However, is a school like USC going to give these candidates -- with Ph.D.'s from A&M and Georgia respectively -- a fair shot given the composition of their current faculty? Clark Muntean doesn't seem to quite fit into the traditional public managment vein, but her Ph.D. from UCSD would be a good fit (I suppose).
Wow, apparently once people get rested, things become livelier here.
Any info on who else is interviewing at SUNY Albany? How about Ohio State? How about NYU - Wagner? (Their deadline was a month and a half ago, but no info has leaked.)
(I agree with the point of not discussing current assistant profs on the market though. Who know what could happen...)
I got a letter from NYU saying they would be reviewing applications "over the next few months." They don't seem to be in a hurry. My guess is that their list probably won't leak to our boards - I bet they recruit from b-schools, given who is there now and how the ad read.
Wow - when ABDs who get interviewed for a RANK OPEN position at a top 10 policy school are assessed as "average," I think we need a reality check of what "average" really is. Look at where I'm interviewing... It ain't USC, and I'm hardly in the bowels of the market.
Does anyone know what FIU is looking for? They're advertising 3 or 4 lines. Pay range listed on public service careers website seems VERY LOW for Miami COL!
Applying to anything in Florida seems to be a gamble. I've noticed news of hiring freezes there every single year for the last few years. And when they don't, well the pay sucks. (Not surprising from a state with disproportionaly many old people that have no intention whatsoever to spend money on education. Plus it will sink soon anyway.)
regarding fiu... i was going to apply, but then saw the salary range. even if you get the top end of it at 55K, that's not enough to buy even a modest house. do they only want single people to apply who are willing to live in apartments? anyone with kids could never make it down there on that pay.
Wow - I go home for Thanksgiving, and I come back to all of this action on the blog, with names and everything!
- I agree, USC is overrated, but a lot of policy schools seem to prefer disciplinary PhDs, which might explain the mix of folks they seem to be interviewing. - I don't know who is interviewing at SUNY Albany. David Pitts is interviewing at Ohio State, but I'm not sure of the others. NYU hasn't made calls yet - pretty sure about that one. - Those FIU salaries practically qualify you for state assistance in Miami. I'll be really interested to see what comes out of that one. - Becky Nesbit is exceptional. UNC Charlotte should snatch her up before she takes something else.
It's early to speculate who will land where - for example, USC has two positions, and I think a lot of people are going to sort themselves into their preferred spots in the next month or two.
It's understandable, but a bit frustrating that the first fave of interviews almost by default goes to pretty much the entire crop of the top 5 schools. The majority of the folks are indeed great, but some of the trully bad job talks I've seen have also happened within this wave (made only worse by the smug delivery). Which is perhaps also understandable. A top school provides plenty of opportunities for a vague but hefty looking CV even if the substance is not there.
12:43 has a point. I have also seen subpar job talks by people at Top 5 places, and I remember us all being so surprised, given that the person almost always looked great on paper. That's often the case with ABDs, since there's no known record there. But hey - it's not as bad as political science or economics. Try getting a decent interview there if you're not from a Top 25 department.
I think what one defines as "substance" in research varies, too. At the end of the day, though, it is difficult to argue that a CV with a large number of top PP/PA journal articles doesn't have substance. If we think it does not, then what does that say about us as a field and as peer reviewers?
Interesting discussion... I've been in this field for a while now and have been on a number of search committees. SCs make decisions on imperfect information, and it has to use a lot of proxies in figuring out a candidate's quality. In my experience, if a SC wants to pick the candidate who is MOST LIKELY to make a long term and meaningful impact on policy, this is how it sorts out:
1. Assistant professor with a top 10 PhD and a good record of publication 2. Assistant professor from a lesser known school but who has published out of it 3. ABD from a top 10 school who has a publication or two 4. ABD from a top 10 school with no pubs but a good committee 5. ABD from a lesser known school but with a publication or two 6. ABD from a top school with a bad committee and no record (beware)
The fact is that students in top programs are almost always best trained. It takes a lot of climbing out for people in schools down the reputation list to get to the level of methodological and theoretical sophistication you see out of a top program. My PhD is not from a top program, so I have no bias here. Just observations.
No question that several publications in good journals == substance. However, things are rarely as clean. What most ABDs (myself included) have, is some publications in "some" outlets, often obscure, often non-peer reviewed, often both. So I wouldn't put too much weight on this, as these come with minimum effort - let's be honest here.
Publishing oneself out is also not a cleancut project, unfortunately. For example, in the process of trying to do so, I have 70-80% of my papers in B journals; and 20-30% in good journals; The ranges may vary even more depending on who looks at the journals. So technically, that's 'a lot' of papers, but a lot of this could be invisible depending who's looking. I certainly don't doubt myself, but I know that people will have a wide ranges of valuations for the same set of credentials. Which doesn't exactly provide evidence that a thing such as "The Field" exists.
I certainly understand why Ohio State would want to interview Pitts, he seems to be the real deal. (Who else is going there?) However, I don't see how a hypothetical move from Georgia State to Ohio State would make sense rankings-wise. I think OSU-glenn is great, but it is not in any rankings worth talking about yet, while GSU is in the top 20. (Needless to say this is just an observation, couldn't care less about people's personal motivations...)
I don't think the publication mix for ABDs is as important as for assistant professors. I think most would expect the mix to improve as one progresses, and so you'd expect to see more "B" journals, etc.
Having said that, "publishing out" of a place gets particularly hard because one's first job is likely a function of the PhD institution's reputation. If that first job involves a 3-3 or 4-4 teaching load, it gets hard to publish, period. It's a stratified system where the rich keep getting richer and the poor keep getting poorer (to use the analogy loosely).
As for this Georgia State to Ohio State question - who knows what personal motivations are in play. I can tell you that an underfunded public university (which I suspect GSU to be) is no picnic. Salaries are low, morale is low, student quality is low, etc. I don't care where GSU is "ranked" - I'd take Ohio State any day of the week.
Take a look at the vitaes of assistant professors at USC: all of them are from top schools, such as Harvard, Stanford, Princeton, Columbia, Berkeley. Will this year be an outlier?
Of course it is not going to be an outlier. The point is that all of the assistant professors there have between 4 and 10 publications, mostly in their respective niche journals. Of course it's nice to have and all-Ivy crew, but this is an average production level anywhere (worth talking about). By the way, Ohio State easily kicks their a$$ on this measure.
USC had a great public administration school many years ago, almost tied with the Maxwell School. Now it is struggling in the reconstruction to a policy school. It is not surprising that currently no faculty there has a Ph.D. in public administration, and its Ph.D. in public administration program was even merged into a strange program of PhD in PPD. However, its hiring capacity should be superb due to its high ranking, great location and private status. Money talks in this market.
6:11 AM, this is not because Pitts is suddenly hot, and it is not even about Pitts and Muntean personally. People are just wondering whether a well-established AP with a Ph.D. from TOP3/5 PA school can beat an ABD from a TOP10 PS in the PA job market.
Is it really about "beating" another candidate? Isn't it more about fit? Regardless of the top 5 or 10 status of our program, if we don't click with anyone, we're not going to get the gig period (unless everyone else clicks even less and desperation kicks in)
Here we go again with the "fit speak"... Nobody needs to click with anybody (in academia) in order for everybody to be doing their job. Once the determination is made whether or not a person is a good match topically, for an institution type (e.g. R1 vs. SLAC, etc.), and whether or not they have the goods to delliver in it, everything else is self-back-patting.
What value are you people adding by outing names of candidates and potentially causing them harm at their current institutions? Especially those who choose to share disparaging remarks? This behavior is not befitting of any academician. Get a life.
The value of "outing" candidates is in understanding the competition. I don't care about the person, I care about their credentials, or lack of.
In most universities it is possible to retrieve this type of information through public records (sure, perhaps post-factum). Gossiping on the web is an easier, and amusing, though of course unreliable way to get this information.
In addition, it is funny to observe SCs becoming defensive over their choices - they often have reasons to be.
What kind of harm will be caused to those APs returning to the job market? In economics or business, the rule of thumb is that everyone is always on the market. Do deans in pp/pa hate free market?
This blog may suck, but if it wasn't for the shady info on it, I wouldn't be aware that I am reasonably competitive. So if someone's sensibilities have been offended in the process, I am happily discounting that and not looking back.
If you don't like seeing names, simply don't visit the blog. What difference does it make if names are mentioned? If you are an AP and don't want your name mentioned, don't apply for a job. The reality is that nearly everything about anybody is available somewhere on the web.
Calm down, guys...As long as this blog does not involve personal attacks, I am quite happy to see people divulging names, and I do not think it is a violation of either academic rules or personal privacy. This is a blog of job rumors, right?
Nothing like a little poking at insecurities to liven up this place, eh?
I read the recent barking as emblematic of how absurd is the non-transparency of the process. The ones in position to decide seem to be opposed to relinquishing even largely nonconsequential info. (At least 3 explanatioins for this, none of them makes anybody look good.)
The ones on the market, well, it IS absurd that we need to turn to blogs to get the tiniest bit of deformed insight in a process that's unnecesarily idyosincratic, in many places anyway. One would wonder are we professionals, or cult members that also need to be able to flash elaborate gang signs?
Several SCs are moving, but I'm not about to post my friends who are getting interviews... They're just going to get trashed by insecure people who wish they had interviews (see 6:11 earlier).
Oh yeah, I have some new interviews that aren't posted, too. They'll go with me to my grave. though. I'm thinking 6:11 is probably on the blogs between adding to her Facebook page and preparing to fail her third year review. Don't want her to have new names to trash.
Would any SC member easily buy the point of 6:11? Anyway, I do not think 6:11 is that mean. Maybe she/he is just telling some truth from her/his own perspective.
How do you decide who's average and who's not? UCSD is a top 10 university. I guess you have that time and energy and lack of self-confidence to decide who's average only if you come from a third tier university.
USC has a crew of political scientists, the Dean himself is one of them. I still can't see the problem here.
In any case, attacks seem personal on this blog. They go far beyond rumors,
re: 23/11/07 2:40 PM and 21/11/07 5:59 PM and 25/11/07 8:24 PM Well, I trust the Dean at USC SPPD who is a respected Political Scientist over those not getting called who deal with the anxiety-ridden silence by attacking other candidates on a blog... BTW - UCSD Poli Sci IS a Top School (Rank 3 in comparative, 5 in American; 2 overall in production-adjusted score after Cal-Tech)
Regarding discussion of PA/ PM versus PS candidates [26/11/07 9:19 AM and others]: There is a pecking order in academia. Economics is more rigorous than Political Science, for example, and Poli Sci depts and Business Schools hire Economists, who come at a premium. Similarly, Political Science is known to be a more rigorous degree than Public Admin, Public Affairs, and Public Policy. There is a lot of comparing of apples and oranges on this blog (such as ABDs to established APs, and PS degrees with PA). Not helpful folks!
It's very easy to determine who is average and who is not: look how much and where they publish, period. No need to get all psyched up about this. It's all in the databases.
argh. here we go again with the USCD stuff. How many blogs is this going to appear on? Wasn't it already on the American blog?
And I'll take exception to the view of poli sci being a more rigorous discipline than pa. They're just different. For example PA often requires some government experience (which in turn impacts research). Yeah, PA scholars aren't doing the latest in formal quant modeling. But then again, they don't have to...
28/11/07 9:29 AM, Comparing apples with oranges is meaningless, but when apples and oranges are competing for the same position, people would wonder who will win in the end. Also I could not agree with your "pecking order in academia". The so-called rigorous training in Econ Ph.D. programs might be still naive in pure scientists' eyes (physicists, mathematicians, etc.), but they would not disdain economists' work. I would agree with you that PP/PA/PM Ph.D.s have less training in theory, but frankly speaking my observation is that economists in pa/pp schools are more likely to be teaching in a way of disaster. Anyway, it is a sad fact that PA has no well defined boundary.
RE: PA boundaries It doesn't have to be: it's a professional field informed by multiple disciplines. I've never heard of business schools struggle with these identity issues, given that they meet the very same definition. Strange..
RE: 28/11/07 2:37 PM if you look on Muntean's website, she also has government (and public management) experience so your comment is irrelevant...A great example of what over-generalizations and ignorance leads to -
It's not strange. Business schools do not have to struggle with the identity issues because the supply and demand ratio there is quite different. They smartly produce fewer Ph.D.s in business than the demand each year, thus creating a shortage of supply. Also, some areas in business, such as accounting, have begun to gradually close their doors to Ph.D.s from other disciplines (even econ).
On the contrary, PA/PP schools produce more PA/PP Ph.d.s (maybe more than the real demand) and many of them have been poorly-funded, compared with those at B-schools. When they went on the job market, they finally found that the ap positions in PA/PP schools did not go to most of them. Then it comes to the identity crisis of PA/PP Ph.d.s...
The business school might be an exception in academia. Look at the Ph.d.s in biology, physics, chemistry, and more pure/hard sciences, you can find that the faculty job markets in those disciplines are more terrible. Have those people been less rigorously trained in their doctoral education? Are they mentally less capable? Of course not! The mathematical skills or the so-called formal modeling techniques of an econ/PS Ph.D. might be nothing based on the standards of physicists or mathematicians.
No offense to anyone. It is only about demand and supply. The anxiety and frustration here are really understandable.
I think the quality of methods training really depends more on the school than on the discipline. Most of the top PA programs (there are exceptions) have very good methods training, better than you would find in many political science departments. I have interviewed at some schools recently where PA PhD students do their methods with PS students, and those courses are nowhere near as rigorous as others I've seen (and indeed taken).
The thing about theory in PA is that there's no a whole lot of it. PS is a borrowing discipline, and PA is even more so. It's the nature of the beast.
Oh, and there are WAAAAAY too many PA PhD programs. I agree. But there are also way too many political science PhD programs. And I don't think the analysis of b-schools is exactly right... I think they produce too many PhDs, too, it's just that their PhDs have more opportunities in consulting and practice, so they get drawn away from the academic market.
Then what the hell are PA/PP schools doing? They have not produced many excellent academic leaders (I could not recall any big name with Ph.D. in PA/PP). They have not produced many excellent leaders in really world, where many political figures have degrees from law schools or even business schools (like GWB, heh).
Come on, folks, show some faith. The PA market hasn't been this good in years. By varying estimates, there are between 60 and 100 generalist PA/management jobs advertised. No matter how big the pool, with this many jobs, the competition is reasonable.
Currently, it seems that the majority of the interviews are hogged by a small group of very popular ABDs+APs. Some of them qill get jobs quickly, some of them will tank quickly. The market will move, and in the end, the good guys win. Amen.
The misapplication of economic principles on here is saddening. First, we have job-seekers on the demand curve.
Then, we have a claim that "its only about demand and supply" and that this is to the disadvantage of PA candidates. This argument is patently false, as demand has far exceeded supply in recent years.
And even still, someone argues that "there are WAAAAAY too many PA PhD programs." Again, this suggestion that supply exceeds demand is wrong.
The only persons who benefit from the lack of transparency in this market are those rockstars. Many interview opportunities and job offers are hogged by those rock ABDs&APs, which has greatly delayed the speed of market clearance. However, both deans and job seekers are very sensitive to time cost. It is not surprising that due to the lack of transparency a number of schools will fail to fill their positions and a number of ABDs will end up with nothing each year. This may cause a lot of losses and frustration. As a result, both deans and their search committees have wasted their time, energy and money, while some ABDs, with great pains in heart, will have to postpone their graduation or choose to go somewhere else. The market will move but it moves very slowly, that's why it is important to keep this market as transparent as possible.
Anyway, those established APs back to the job market are like WMD, thus I do not think they deserve any special protection. They should be tough enough, right?
That's a good point that deans may waste their time on candidates they know may turn them down, but in many cases, they are making an active decision to take the risk. I am an AP who has interviewed a few places this year, and in every case I have been clear about where else I am interviewing and when the timetables fall. I have seen some cases (not involving me) where a candidate wanted to accept an offer and cancel another interview that came later, but the interviewing school all but insisted the candidate go ahead and make the trip.
Schools may decide to postpone hires to the following year, but we've seen a lot of that already, with some schools hiring multiple positions this year. I bet they start to work down the list and interview secondary pools of candidates instead of throwing in the towel and searching again.
It makes perfect sense for SCs to try to get the best possible candidates thay can get a hold of, without second guessing them. However, an AP status artificially simplifies the decision process. It certainly helps, but if anything, shold make people devote more attention to trying to make decent comparisons. Just because somebody is already an AP does not mean that they are any good, or at least as good as a productive person currently an ABD. I've witnessed a search where the 1st round of interviews failed because the APs invited (both of them) were inadequate. The third interview (abd from a top school) was also bad. It's like the housing market. Just because a house is built, doesn't mean that its price will keep climbing. Wow,
Why do we even care if a PA phd is famous or in a leadership position? Isn't the phd primarily a teaching/research degree? How many PhD chemists or biologist are world leaders? Would we even hear of most of them without the Nobel? We don't get Nobel's (even if Simon got one). We probably won't be famous even if we are in PS and become president like Wilson. But to think that Wilson could ascend to the presidency today might be a stretch. I realize that a history prof was a president on the West Wing, and that Newt was (as I understand it) a very good history prof, and that Paul Wellstone was a PS prof at one point, but there aren't too many out there.
If I wanted to be a political leader I would have gone to law school, and not go through the hell of getting a PhD
to the comments about the blog getting to personal... I agree, but... The is an anonymous blog, should we buy any of the comments positive or negative about anyone here. I could put up a post about myself saying that gosh darn it I'm the hottest thing on the market. Buyer beware, that's all I'm saying.
The last I heard Fotini Christia is receiving her PhD in public policy, and she is doing very well on the PS job market in both IR, as well as in CP. Perhaps people should tone down their comments re lack of rigor in training in PP programs. . . . .
The quality of the school overall is the best predictor of the overall quality of the training of the students, not the type of program.
The one thing that I am unhappy with is that this reasoning could be taken to the extreme in across the board judgements, or at the very least this criterion be assigned more wright that it should have on its own.
My unhappiness is of course due to personal circumstances - I am not from a top school, and I am perfectly aware of how many (most) of the courses I took sucked. But a PhD program is about what you do in it, not what it does for you. So I publish at a good pace and can comfortably hold my own against many of the top school graduates, yet in spite of this I fully expect my CV to be partially discounted on the basis of degree origin. Just an observation.
Any news about any job, anywhere? I must confess that I have some, but for some twisted reason prefer not to share or post them (perhaps to keep the competition anxious?). I hope that not everybody is like me!
12:01 PM, I am at a top school but I have similar experiences in the doctoral courses. PA schools are usually divided in their micro-foundations, and sometimes people have very little consensus. Yet political scientists, sociologists, and economists would try to convince you that they have the best knowledge in their courses, and if you could not find your own approach, you would be mentally damaged. I found only two doctoral courses in my program are very very useful and I could not remember anything from most other courses. I went to business schools and political sciences for some courses, which prove to be very very helpful. That said, personal choice does matter a lot more than the school environment.
How is checking out the competition insecure? If you're unable to give yourself a sober self-assessment against a benchmark, perhaps others are. Enjoy.
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«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 400 of 1292 Newer› Newest»Georgia might (and should) be tight lipped, but I'm willing to bet we'll hear initial stirrings on Busbee candidates next month...
Does anyone know anything about the MPA Director position at College of Charleston in SC?
Regarding College of Charleston, secondhand is that the committee met last week.
Any word on James Madison or Dayton?
Dayton is interviewing candidates.
Any other news on C of Charleston? I heard third hand they were deciding on an interview list middle of this week. Anyone know names?
A buyer's Market????
I was just talking to someone informally about a position in PA. This person tells me that they are getting few applications for their positions. This was not a big research one school, so may not be true everywhere.
Still, I see a LOT of PA jobs out there, a lot of schools (especially non-flagship schools) are moving slowly, and I just wonder how many could be out looking.
I hope to see the jobs wiki fill in because I am wondering just where all the PA types are going to come from to fill these jobs?
Thoughts on this theory or assumption?
10:58 is correct. It is very much a buyer's market in PA (as it was last year too). In fact, most PA jobs generally have a shortage of qualified job applicants.
It's starting to become big problem for search committees.
That's a seller's market (assuming the candidate is selling their services as a teacher/researcher).
Oopsy!
I was looking at the candidate "buying" the position of the university.
Any job news???
The American Pol Blog reports that C. of Charleston has an interview list - I assume for their American job. Any news on their MPA Director search?
Thanks for posting this. I, too, am following the C of C MPA director search. I heard rumors of contacting for interviews too and assumed it was this position. Is there also an American position?
Good luck to you either way...renewed hopes?
I stole this idea from the American blog. Maybe it can get things moving in here… Ok kids, time for some spreadsheet cleanup. You know the drill... say what you know about these jobs with deadlines in the ancient past:
Auburn
East Carolina
Iowa State
James Madison
Kennesaw State
Mississippi State
South Dakota
UNC-Greensboro
Names, no names, whatever, just give my spreadsheet and the wiki some closure.
CofC has three jobs-MPA director, american behavior, & comparative politics. Closing dates were staggered (not exact) Oct. 1 (behavior), Oct. 15 (MPA), Nov 1 (comparative). Given these dates, I assume they are doing the american position first, etc., etc. However, you never know how these searches work. I do know they searched for american last year and did not hire, so I would think that position is the primary focus, and the others will likely take place after interviews for that position are completed. This is pure speculation however.
South Dakota is interviewing, but if they have more than one position, I am not sure which one.
Oh yeah, Iowa State is interviewing, too.
I heard that the East Carolina MPA Director search is going forward with calls in early December for interviews in early January. Means they must be moving on their other jobs more quickly.
Anything on Tennessee? Long short list was rumored a couple weeks ago.
there are mixed opinions about the "deficit" of PA people in the current market.
I doubt this, but let's assume that this is true. If so, what happens:
1) Departments who moved later cancel the searches and hope for the better next year
or
2) scrape the bottom of the barrel for as long as they can without vomiting
Depends on school and budget. Some schools hire because they know if they don't they will lose the position. Others can wait as the line is guaranteed. But, I doubt anyone goes with lesser candidate -- most will hire a one year to fill the line and recruit next year.
So if you have PhD, have experience, have a publication record, and teaching and service experience, you should be in pretty good shape...depending upon fit.
For the most part, yes. Some candidates encounter problems when they do not do well presenting themselves, i.e., s/he is not outgoing, very reserved, etc.
For many PA positions outside of top ranked schools (think schools where most students are in-service), you have to have a bit of a personality since you'll be expected to interact with public administrators (mostly state/local civil servants) and be active in local ASPA chapters.
The occasional SC comments here are a lot more interesting than any half-a$$ed job rumor.
Any news on the VA Tech junior search?
On 3:04, I think it really depends. For example, work experience probably helps at second tier PA programs, but isn't going to get you a whole lot at top tier PA/PP programs. A publication record can be a blessing or a curse... ABDs with the potential to publish high-quality work are more valuable at many schools that somebody with 10 pubs in bad journals (and we all know these exist in PA).
The bottom line that we are all likely to agree to is that somebody with the characteristics pointed out by 3:04 is likely to get *a* job, the question is how *good* it will be.
I agree w/ 7:32. I don't think service or teaching experience is all that valuable at many R1s. Also, in response to 12:49, I think many schools just broaden what they're willing to take in terms of fit. They might be more likely to take somebody who is management instead of finance, or broaden the substantive policy area they're willing to hire. I've seen schools decide to move to other disciplines and decide to hire a sociologist or straight political scientist. Those markets aren't as thin and salaries are lower, so those hires are pretty easy to make.
On 7:32 and 7:35...
I think you both are probably right about what you say, but it is a shame. Someone with a very good record that includes excellent teaching, lots of service and outreach, and a good publication record with 10 or so journals should be an asset to any R1 school...particularly if all this was done as an assistant or early associate.
I mean, why shoudn't we value experience over inexperience, when we can get it (given the market...that isn't all that easy)? I know this, of course, depends on what the experience is.
Last, in terms of good and bad journals, this appears to be a lot less defined in PA than in other fields. Some find JPART and JPAM to be tops, but they have very very low acceptance rates. Others see PAR as the leading journal in the field. Then there is Admin. and Society, Governance, Politics and Policy, PBF, etc. Others are interdisciplinary and publish in lots of places.
I don't know, but to me, someone with a defined research agenda who publishes actively in peer review journals, and who can also teach very well and be active in their field inside and outside the university would be a stellar candidate.
This R1 would take them quickly and smile devilishly at those who turned their nose up at them.
There are not enough candidates to go around for all the schools hiring. If candidates move from one school to another, that just delays the problem a year.
8:27 makes good sense. A lot of it seems to be prestige of PhD institution, too. My opinion (and others might disagree) is that it takes probably 6 or more years to "publish out of" a low-reputation PhD program. It's doubly hard to do that when you're saddled with 10 preps and a 3-3 (or higher) load.
Very interesting. I find the broadening the definition of fit approach to be the most rational, should any candidate shortage arise. Let's face it - and I fully realize the uproar this will cause - academic departments are among the organizations where "fit" matters the least. If your work relates to mine and we collaborate - great. If your work does not relate to mine and we don't colaborate - great as well. Just publish your papers, teach your classes, and be a good scholar overall. Sure, there are moment moments when a particular topical specialization is desireable, but getting exactly that one rarely has the urgency that is often implied.
And all that other stuff about "getting along" and "collegiality" seems to be kind of superficial and doesn't matter anyway unless you hire an actual nutcase, but that could be impossible to detect upfront (psychotic types can be very charismatic and charming). Our job is to hire the best possible candidate, that will help the department move up, not a drinking buddy.
8:57:
Well said. Prestige of PhD matters a lot. Going to the right school in the first place makes a big difference. Reputation of your advisor and connections help a great deal when recruiting...plus people know they are well trained because those before them were.
That said, schools should be careful and not miss the person who choose a lower ranked school or who started somewhere and tried to publish their way out. A person who publishes at a liberal arts or lower tiered state school can be a real gem. They know how to teach, relate to students, they do mentoring, and teach high loads. If they publish in lower tiered journals, or at all, it is fantastic.
Watch out for that type of person if you are on a search committee. They have proven themselves and imagine what they might do with a 2-2 load, graduate student support? They might also just win all your teaching awards too.
The truth is that a person who starts attends a lower ranked PHD school generally takes a job at a lower ranked school. They then work twice as hard to get to the same place as a person who starts out at a top tier program.
Again, watch out for that type of person on the market.
I like the think that any school that is NASPAA accredited should be more than a publication factory. We are charged with training the next generation of public leaders as well. Arguably, this is the most important function of our job and our existence. Good scholarship informs teaching but does not necessitate good teaching and our research (if you read the journals) does not necessarily inform practice either.
As for fit, it does matter as NASPAA demands more accountability as to how we produce students and for what we teach them. This is true of most accrediting organizations as well.
As far as moving up, what exactly does that mean in PA? The rankings are crap. They are reputational only. I would think it would be more important to attend every conference possible, schmooze your tail off, and send off umpteen thousands of announcements (like one school in the northeast appears to do) to "move up" (smile).
I don't know...get the best person you can get, but I like the whole package.
Oh...and please...you hire the "a-hole" so I don't have to (smile)....sorry...
Best to you!
I don't think the rankings are "crap" really - they are just one-dimensional (reputation). The sample they use is a reasonable sample for such purposes, and I generally agree with where most schools land in the list. Does that mean that a master's level *education* at, say, Harvard is necessarily better than the MPA program at Cleveland State? Of course not. But it means that the faculty are probably more reputable at the former, which has consequences for funding, PhD student placement, and even impact on practice.
I also wonder to what extent NASPAA standards really even matter. I have been at three institutions now that are longstanding NASPAA-accredited programs, and in every one the emphasis has been on "backfilling" to make it seem like what we do is a rational response to NASPAA guidelines. There is a lot more effort put into artfully satisfying accreditation requirements ex post than thoughtfully considering NASPAA standards ex ante.
I think the rankings might matter and adequately reflect what we know about the top 10 schools...maybe top 15, but not that rest. I also question how well the capture the real difference between the top 10 and the top 30.
They are pretty horrible though and are based on the ratings of Deans and Chairs at PA schools. They are given a list of schools and a likert scale of reputation...that's it. It might be very easy to rate the first 10 or the places where you sent PhD students, but does that get at all that much in the end?
When it comes down to it, it might measure the reputation of the faculty overall...and would reflect favorably on a collection of those faculty in one place...but it also measures those who people know from conferences, from serving on executive committees, from doing service work in the profession.
In the end though, what does this say about the other 100 + schools that offer an excellent education, produce excellent students, and who have faculty with a solid record of scholarship?
I still think it is primarily marketing and schmoozing and having the resources to do this well.
As for NASPAA, I agree on the backfilling that you note. I bet that is how most approach it. But it does have an impact. When a site visit team notices a program that does not offer the classes it says it does, or does not offer personnel management or ethics, it helps drive resources to hire in these areas.
I think they do have an impact in terms of accountability for what an MPA or MPP program is supposed to offer and be.
Interesting discussion.
Best!
One thing to consider though, some higher ranked PA schools have absolutely dreadful poli sci rankings. That's why the whole ranking thing becomes more gray in PA (especially if it's a pa job in a poli sci department). For example, if I were on a search committee hiring for an urban policy expert I would choose a Ph.D. from Cleveland State over Harvard (based solely on urban affairs rankings) (And I'm certainly not trying to insult any ivy leaguers out there. I'm just trying to determine the worth of school rank.).
And always remember, the candidate's record easily trumps the reputation of their ph.d. school.
Good discussion though.
From my limited experience, the good students are exactly the same everywhere, regardless of the ranking of the university. The only difference between ivy league type schools and lesser schools is that the unfortunate students that are 'challenged' are in smaller proportion in the ivies. So I'd never assume that anybody is a star because he is from harvard or look down on somebody from a lesser school. Morons and good catches live in both of these habitats.
I think you're right that there are good students at most programs, particularly students who are constrained geographically and perhaps unable to move to do a PhD at Syracuse or Georgia. Having said that, I have noticed a stark difference in the socialization that students at top schools get compared to others. For example, students at top PA programs get travel support, are on research assistantships that can yield publications (unlike teaching or policy assistantships), and learn the rules of the game early and well.
I wonder how much socialization predicts success as a junior professor? My guess would be a good bit, if we define success as publishing.
This is all a wonderful discussion. . .but is there any job news?
Would appear that dept/cmtes would be eager to get these searches completed and positions filled (with apparent market dynamics).
Seems like things have stagnated for job interviews/news/offers, especially since many jobs closed mid-Oct or early Nov.
I think many of the interviews scheduled are not going to be done until for another couple of weeks or so... I am thinking offers will start going out by the first or second week of December. Maybe a dead time until then, although lots of people seem to be starting to interview, according to the Wiki.
Yeah, let's the market decide what's hot, and what's not. So, dear SCs, no offense, but enough with the theorising - get back to work!
Hough.
"Hough"?
I'm not on a search committee, but at least somebody's saying something on this board! If all 5:18 wants is job rumors, s/he's not going to have a whole lot to read.
I've got to disagree a bit with 12:58 above who said "One thing to consider though, some higher ranked PA schools have absolutely dreadful poli sci rankings."
Indiana has great Poli Sci and great PA.
Georgia has great PA and pretty good Poli Sci.
Syracuse has great PA and decent Poli Sci.
Texas A&M has great PA and Poli Sci.
Let's not get those brush strokes too wide here.
And many good policy schools have great polisci: Harvard, Chicago, Berkeley, Duke, Princeton, etc.
Will UVA be able to do the same?
Eastern KY University is interviewing.
UVa is an interesting case, isn't it? Lots of money, lots of prestige, proximity to DC... You have to wonder how it couldn't do well with that formula. They'll have to make strategic hires. Some might disagree with me on this, but I think a key example of a new school gone bad is the Clinton School. They've hired a bunch of practitioners and there's no credible research agenda there. It might be an exciting place to get an MPA, but I'm betting the PA/PP community is going to reject that model, which could have some consequences for program building.
As an applicant, I can say that the Clinton school is a huge turnoff. And I say that as a person that thinks that all research should have obvious practical relevance. They can go sit and tell each other war stories over a night cap all they want.
I dont know much about how the Clinton school has been implemented in practice, but I really liked the design and think that programs could do a helluva lot more to learn from at least what the "model" tells us, if nothing else.
I agree, with all that has been said, but a mix of the practitioner and the academic...or the academic who is rewarded (and not punished) for civic engagement work...is valuable.
I like the idea of public service projects, engaging the student with real world experience, and learning from doing when possible...BUT...you must have the nuts and bolts there empirically and academically...or you get JUST war stories.
IF such a model, in practice, is not credible, then that is what NASPAA accreditation guidelines should help improve. This is why I still think NASPAA is valuable.
And that's give a bit of a break to the Clinton school. It's still a pretty young program....
..off to a bad start.
Once it gets into the juvenile justice system, it'll be the poster boy of what poor choices lead to.
So, is anything happening between now and thanksgiving, or SCs are already into the holiday, and no-application-processing zone???
I have an interview Monday/Tuesday. Not sure if that's typical.
I once interviewed at a school between Christmas and New Year's. Everything is fair game when scheduling interviews.
I say SCs go ahead and interview over their thanksgiving/christmas dinners. I'm bringing the wine. And the powerpoints. At least if somebody chokes you'll know it's the turkey.
Who is updating the wiki, and since when has it come under the auspice of one person? There might be a couple of factual errors there that someone has tried to change and this "author" has changed them back...that's why it's on a wiki...so we can all contribute...
I don't think the Wiki has an author... Anybody can update it. I think somebody has offered to post changes for people who can't figure out how to block their IP address, since the "Activities" link on the Wiki will otherwise show the IP address of the last update (e.g., people can figure out who is updating, which makes it not anonymous). I have made updates since that link was put at the top of the page, and nobody has altered them.
So the Wiki reports Kentucky made an offer - any idea which of the gazillion positions they've made an offer on? Willing to say who has it?
I believe the kentucky started with the health policy position.
Then, they will move onto the management position, followed by the finance positions.
It's a rumor, so if you take it seriously, well...
Jeez...it seems it seems that the market and employers are not synchronized. I would be looking for the finance or budgeting position first. There are so very very few out there, lots of folks want them, and they will just plain be gone if you don't get to them fast.
Maybe what we are seeing in terms of how slow things are going is lack of applications, questionable mid-year budgets (due to the economic downturn) and the like.
On the latter, I would think that you would want to hire fast...or risk losing the line.
Anyone want to chat about this?
I totally agree. Attracting public finance candidates is very hard these days. It seems like there are way more health policy candidates out there than public finance candidates (I could be wrong though).
Just look at U's that are hiring this year for public finance positions - many of them couldn't fill the position last year, because there is a shortage of good candidates.
A school might make an early offer in a field like health policy if they know who they want and they were afraid of losing the candidate to other schools moving early. This happens all the time in the polisci market
Why would things move slow because of low number of applications? I would expect the opposite - the lower the number, the faster you move to get the good ones; the greater the number, the less you care how fast you get to it.
huh?
But no question that things are moving slowly.
Low numbers may mean that the search failed.
True dat about public finance in general and its implications for hiring strategy, but don't forget that Kentucky already has lots and lots of finance people; so they don't absolutely need to fill finance positions.
On another topic, beats me why schools persist in the public finance hiring hysteria. Sure, that's an essential class to teach, but there are many more qualified individuals out there, other than newly minted PhDs expecting to spend their lives doing research on that, that can teach this, including certain breed of practicioners.
There's a reason why economises consider the finance positions to be a big step down - it's not rocket science (or economics, anyway)
>Low numbers may mean that the >search failed.
What do you mean? It is hard to believe that among 15-20 (since this is considered low) applications there are no at least 3-4 that that are good.
some schools require a minimum number of applications before an offer can be made.
also, 15-20 apps do not always leave the SC with 3-4 quality candidates.
A minimum requirement of applications...that is so arbitrary. I mean, come on, if that were the case, what would you do if you were looking for, say, a diversity hire.
I have all this stuff in my head about crosstabs with 0's in the cells and stuff.
Come on folks...apply, apply so we can get some movement! :)
some schools require a minimum number of applications before an offer can be made.
Wow, that's probably one of the dumbest requirements I've encountered. Or maybe I am dumb and don't understand it. But seriously, (Assuming that you have a set of qualified candidates you are happy with, and the position is advertised properly), how could it possibly matter what is the total number of applicants?
eeo requirements
Hi there
I am a black woman at an absolutely top school and do not have 15 interviews. I have two, so please do not pull the race/gender card and think that anglo men cannot compete. At my schools, publications seem to count for an awful lot. I think if you have four publications that is VERY impressive, and you will do well!
Thanks!
Well, if that's true, eeo requirements then are designed by Morons.
There are 5-6 (good) public finance students on the market.
If the number of applications can block a search, this could hypothetically mean that none of them will be offered a job, even though there will be tens of schools who would like to hire them.
Ridiculous.
why are finance positions important? do we forget that the budget doc is the most important piece of legislation passed by governments each year??? There is a big difference between someone who can 'teach' a finance course, and someone who is a finance person. Any old hack can pretend to teach just about anything, but if you want someone in your department to really teach and research in that field you need someone with those expertise...and unfortunately there just aren't enough of them out there.
Exactly! So I would have probably jumped in the water a week after the deadline of my job add to get someone in that field.
From what I can tell on the wiki, South Carolina was among the first to move on their budget/finance jobs...the looked last year too...sounds like they have learned.
the pa/management jobs obviously haven't learned
The "minimum number of applicants" rule is ridiculous, I agree, but (sadly) no more ridiculous than countless other HR regulations on academic hiring.
I actually think what happens more often is that SCs don't see 3-5 good people in the pool, and knowing that some of the top people in the pool are likely to either drop out prior to interviews or wind up taking another offer, they decide to hold off another year and "start earlier."
Having worked at several universities and chaired more than a few search committees, I never had a "minimum rule". The one time a search committee decided to close a search, a combination of factors -- small pool, timing (too late in hiring season), salary was not going to be competitive, etc. -- determined the termination of the search.
I suspect the slow moving process this year is due to not enough high quality applicants. This is a function of many things and includes among these, less market re-entry, e.g., those in third year of appointment explore market, and less confidence in ABDs finishing as promised (as many places are more and more reluctant to go with an ABD that cannot show evidence of finishing 'by May'). Plus, there seem to be more hires at associate and full this year than years past (though may be my misperception), so things may break later as people begin to make decisions. Just my $.02.
While here, while I doubt it since it is so close to the holiday break, have any departments announced new hires?
News about MPA Director positions at Kennesaw, East Carolina, College of Charleston? I see where calls have been made for these, so who is on the lists?
How about Tennessee as well?
Rumor from a reliable source has it that Texas A&M has made an offer on their policy/administration position.
Who is interviewing at USC? Any names?
The Wiki says that Clark-Muntean is interviewing at USC. I have third-hand [but reliable] info. that David Pitts (Georgia PhD) is interviewing there as well.
My advice to USC would be to take Pitts...
They may not get a chance... We're interviewing him, too, and I think he's on at least 3 other short lists. Other SC folks: Who else seems to be interviewing multiple places?
I dare the SCs begin to start bluntly discuss candidates here - ones that interview, or ones that simply look good, or bad. That would be an excellent read, given the observance of basic politeness and decency of course, in spite of the anonimity.
I would start, with Muntean, but I'm not on a SC so there's no point.
As interesting as it might be, I would just as soon SCs keep their mouths shut. It's one thing for them to talk about ABDs, but another thing to talk about assistant professors who may or may not have communicated being on the market to their departments. As an assistant professor on the market (secretly), I would hope the SCs wouldn't advertise my interview, positive or negative.
I have heard that USC is also interviewing Avaleneda from A&M.
Avellaneda would be a stellar choice for USC. She is a very talented individual who would do wonders for the public management side of USC's school. Pitts, I think is going to be a hot commodity anywhere he interviews. However, is a school like USC going to give these candidates -- with Ph.D.'s from A&M and Georgia respectively -- a fair shot given the composition of their current faculty? Clark Muntean doesn't seem to quite fit into the traditional public managment vein, but her Ph.D. from UCSD would be a good fit (I suppose).
Just my opinion...I'm not on an SC.
Asif Efrat (Harvard Government) is being interviewed at the Bush school at Texas A & M.
Warigia Bowman (Harvard Public Policy) is being interviewed at Georgia Tech (STIA), SUNY Albany and American University (SIS)
Source: A classmate of both.
I really can't understand how come Muntean is interviewing at USC, along with people like Pitts. Seems... so... average...
(not on a SC)
Wow, apparently once people get rested, things become livelier here.
Any info on who else is interviewing at SUNY Albany?
How about Ohio State?
How about NYU - Wagner? (Their deadline was a month and a half ago, but no info has leaked.)
(I agree with the point of not discussing current assistant profs on the market though. Who know what could happen...)
I got a letter from NYU saying they would be reviewing applications "over the next few months." They don't seem to be in a hurry. My guess is that their list probably won't leak to our boards - I bet they recruit from b-schools, given who is there now and how the ad read.
If the SC job comes down to who does the best on the interview, my money is on Avalleneda. Her interview here was the best job talk I have ever seen.
Wow - when ABDs who get interviewed for a RANK OPEN position at a top 10 policy school are assessed as "average," I think we need a reality check of what "average" really is. Look at where I'm interviewing... It ain't USC, and I'm hardly in the bowels of the market.
Does anyone know what FIU is looking for? They're advertising 3 or 4 lines. Pay range listed on public service careers website seems VERY LOW for Miami COL!
what happened to the ut-austin ad? it was strange wording and no due date for materials.
Chill. Take it as an additional evidence that USC may be good, but somewhat overrated program.
Applying to anything in Florida seems to be a gamble. I've noticed news of hiring freezes there every single year for the last few years.
And when they don't, well the pay sucks.
(Not surprising from a state with disproportionaly many old people that have no intention whatsoever to spend money on education. Plus it will sink soon anyway.)
Agreed - that FIU salary range is insane for Miami. If I recall, the position is finance/budgeting, too. Who are they going to get for chump change?
regarding fiu... i was going to apply, but then saw the salary range. even if you get the top end of it at 55K, that's not enough to buy even a modest house. do they only want single people to apply who are willing to live in apartments? anyone with kids could never make it down there on that pay.
Univ of North Carolina-Charlotte is interviewing Becky Nesbit and
Mark Hager for a public administration position
keep'em coming, people!
Any word on who is interviewing at Georgetown?
Wow - I go home for Thanksgiving, and I come back to all of this action on the blog, with names and everything!
- I agree, USC is overrated, but a lot of policy schools seem to prefer disciplinary PhDs, which might explain the mix of folks they seem to be interviewing.
- I don't know who is interviewing at SUNY Albany. David Pitts is interviewing at Ohio State, but I'm not sure of the others. NYU hasn't made calls yet - pretty sure about that one.
- Those FIU salaries practically qualify you for state assistance in Miami. I'll be really interested to see what comes out of that one.
- Becky Nesbit is exceptional. UNC Charlotte should snatch her up before she takes something else.
It's early to speculate who will land where - for example, USC has two positions, and I think a lot of people are going to sort themselves into their preferred spots in the next month or two.
Expect Dayton position to be locked up soon.
10:00 PM rocks.
USC has 5 positions when you include possible senior hires
It's understandable, but a bit frustrating that the first fave of interviews almost by default goes to pretty much the entire crop of the top 5 schools. The majority of the folks are indeed great, but some of the trully bad job talks I've seen have also happened within this wave (made only worse by the smug delivery).
Which is perhaps also understandable. A top school provides plenty of opportunities for a vague but hefty looking CV even if the substance is not there.
12:43 has a point. I have also seen subpar job talks by people at Top 5 places, and I remember us all being so surprised, given that the person almost always looked great on paper. That's often the case with ABDs, since there's no known record there. But hey - it's not as bad as political science or economics. Try getting a decent interview there if you're not from a Top 25 department.
I think what one defines as "substance" in research varies, too. At the end of the day, though, it is difficult to argue that a CV with a large number of top PP/PA journal articles doesn't have substance. If we think it does not, then what does that say about us as a field and as peer reviewers?
Interesting discussion... I've been in this field for a while now and have been on a number of search committees. SCs make decisions on imperfect information, and it has to use a lot of proxies in figuring out a candidate's quality. In my experience, if a SC wants to pick the candidate who is MOST LIKELY to make a long term and meaningful impact on policy, this is how it sorts out:
1. Assistant professor with a top 10 PhD and a good record of publication
2. Assistant professor from a lesser known school but who has published out of it
3. ABD from a top 10 school who has a publication or two
4. ABD from a top 10 school with no pubs but a good committee
5. ABD from a lesser known school but with a publication or two
6. ABD from a top school with a bad committee and no record (beware)
The fact is that students in top programs are almost always best trained. It takes a lot of climbing out for people in schools down the reputation list to get to the level of methodological and theoretical sophistication you see out of a top program. My PhD is not from a top program, so I have no bias here. Just observations.
No question that several publications in good journals == substance. However, things are rarely as clean. What most ABDs (myself included) have, is some publications in "some" outlets, often obscure, often non-peer reviewed, often both. So I wouldn't put too much weight on this, as these come with minimum effort - let's be honest here.
Publishing oneself out is also not a cleancut project, unfortunately. For example, in the process of trying to do so, I have 70-80% of my papers in B journals; and 20-30% in good journals; The ranges may vary even more depending on who looks at the journals.
So technically, that's 'a lot' of papers, but a lot of this could be invisible depending who's looking. I certainly don't doubt myself, but I know that people will have a wide ranges of valuations for the same set of credentials. Which doesn't exactly provide evidence that a thing such as "The Field" exists.
I certainly understand why Ohio State would want to interview Pitts, he seems to be the real deal. (Who else is going there?) However, I don't see how a hypothetical move from Georgia State to Ohio State would make sense rankings-wise.
I think OSU-glenn is great, but it is not in any rankings worth talking about yet, while GSU is in the top 20.
(Needless to say this is just an observation, couldn't care less about people's personal motivations...)
I don't think the publication mix for ABDs is as important as for assistant professors. I think most would expect the mix to improve as one progresses, and so you'd expect to see more "B" journals, etc.
Having said that, "publishing out" of a place gets particularly hard because one's first job is likely a function of the PhD institution's reputation. If that first job involves a 3-3 or 4-4 teaching load, it gets hard to publish, period. It's a stratified system where the rich keep getting richer and the poor keep getting poorer (to use the analogy loosely).
As for this Georgia State to Ohio State question - who knows what personal motivations are in play. I can tell you that an underfunded public university (which I suspect GSU to be) is no picnic. Salaries are low, morale is low, student quality is low, etc. I don't care where GSU is "ranked" - I'd take Ohio State any day of the week.
To add to that (along with the disregard for rankings) I'd take Ohio State over USC...
Me too (on the basis of imperfect information).
Take a look at the vitaes of assistant professors at USC: all of them are from top schools, such as Harvard, Stanford, Princeton, Columbia, Berkeley. Will this year be an outlier?
Of course it is not going to be an outlier.
The point is that all of the assistant professors there have between 4 and 10 publications, mostly in their respective niche journals. Of course it's nice to have and all-Ivy crew, but this is an average production level anywhere (worth talking about).
By the way, Ohio State easily kicks their a$$ on this measure.
USC had a great public administration school many years ago, almost tied with the Maxwell School. Now it is struggling in the reconstruction to a policy school. It is not surprising that currently no faculty there has a Ph.D. in public administration, and its Ph.D. in public administration program was even merged into a strange program of PhD in PPD. However, its hiring capacity should be superb due to its high ranking, great location and private status. Money talks in this market.
8:36 PM, Glenn has only ONE assistant professor in its core faculty...How does this compare with those at USC?
Any news from the Martin School,Colorado Denver or VT?
VT did phone interviews a while back but no news I've heard since then.
I'm surprised people are so hot and bothered about Pitts. I've worked with the guy and was never very impressed.
Did Albany call its short list for the public policy positions?
Albany did.
6:11 AM, this is not because Pitts is suddenly hot, and it is not even about Pitts and Muntean personally. People are just wondering whether a well-established AP with a Ph.D. from TOP3/5 PA school can beat an ABD from a TOP10 PS in the PA job market.
Is it really about "beating" another candidate? Isn't it more about fit? Regardless of the top 5 or 10 status of our program, if we don't click with anyone, we're not going to get the gig period (unless everyone else clicks even less and desperation kicks in)
Here we go again with the "fit speak"...
Nobody needs to click with anybody (in academia) in order for everybody to be doing their job.
Once the determination is made whether or not a person is a good match topically, for an institution type (e.g. R1 vs. SLAC, etc.), and whether or not they have the goods to delliver in it, everything else is self-back-patting.
What value are you people adding by outing names of candidates and potentially causing them harm at their current institutions? Especially those who choose to share disparaging remarks? This behavior is not befitting of any academician. Get a life.
The value of "outing" candidates is in understanding the competition. I don't care about the person, I care about their credentials, or lack of.
In most universities it is possible to retrieve this type of information through public records (sure, perhaps post-factum). Gossiping on the web is an easier, and amusing, though of course unreliable way to get this information.
In addition, it is funny to observe SCs becoming defensive over their choices - they often have reasons to be.
What kind of harm will be caused to those APs returning to the job market? In economics or business, the rule of thumb is that everyone is always on the market. Do deans in pp/pa hate free market?
This blog may suck, but if it wasn't for the shady info on it, I wouldn't be aware that I am reasonably competitive. So if someone's sensibilities have been offended in the process, I am happily discounting that and not looking back.
If you are on an SC and you are divulging names on here, you must get a life.
If you are a student divulging names, you must get busier.
If it really is assumed that everyone is on the market (which it isn't), then it helps no one to divulge names.
If you need a blog to know your market value, you must work on your self confidence.
If you don't like seeing names, simply don't visit the blog. What difference does it make if names are mentioned? If you are an AP and don't want your name mentioned, don't apply for a job. The reality is that nearly everything about anybody is available somewhere on the web.
Calm down, guys...As long as this blog does not involve personal attacks, I am quite happy to see people divulging names, and I do not think it is a violation of either academic rules or personal privacy. This is a blog of job rumors, right?
Nothing like a little poking at insecurities to liven up this place, eh?
I read the recent barking as emblematic of how absurd is the non-transparency of the process. The ones in position to decide seem to be opposed to relinquishing even largely nonconsequential info. (At least 3 explanatioins for this, none of them makes anybody look good.)
The ones on the market, well, it IS absurd that we need to turn to blogs to get the tiniest bit of deformed insight in a process that's unnecesarily idyosincratic, in many places anyway.
One would wonder are we professionals, or cult members that also need to be able to flash elaborate gang signs?
Heh, now that some of the frustration is out of the way, let's get back to the rumors.
SCs, is it time to get those APs and superstar ABDs off the market so the rest of us can get a shot? :)
Several SCs are moving, but I'm not about to post my friends who are getting interviews... They're just going to get trashed by insecure people who wish they had interviews (see 6:11 earlier).
I agree with 9:32 (and in reference to 6:11, I've worked with Pitts, too... he's one of the best).
And the Martin school has interviewed some candidates (not sure how many) and at least started making offers (also not sure how many).
Oh yeah, I have some new interviews that aren't posted, too. They'll go with me to my grave. though. I'm thinking 6:11 is probably on the blogs between adding to her Facebook page and preparing to fail her third year review. Don't want her to have new names to trash.
Would any SC member easily buy the point of 6:11? Anyway, I do not think 6:11 is that mean. Maybe she/he is just telling some truth from her/his own perspective.
what's going on with the jobs of American's Public Policy/Methods?
Any info on any of the Texas PA jobs, namely:
UT-Arlington
UT-San Antonio
UNT
UT-Austin
Looks like san antonio has some internal and/or budgetary issues.
They delayed the start of the review by 4 months (won't do anything until some time in january).
I can't think of good reasons for this to be happening, but let's hope I'm wrong.
Whuddabout UT-Arlington and the others in texas? Also, we're still missing some info on Ohio and Suny... huh? eh?
I am aware of UT-Arlington having done at least one phone interview, but nothing on how many or what has happened since.
Arlington has some job talks lined up in the next couple of weeks
Ditto for SUNY Albany and Ohio
On the 23/11/07 2:40 post
How do you decide who's average and who's not? UCSD is a top 10 university. I guess you have that time and energy and lack of self-confidence to decide who's average only if you come from a third tier university.
USC has a crew of political scientists, the Dean himself is one of them. I still can't see the problem here.
In any case, attacks seem personal on this blog. They go far beyond rumors,
College of Charleston has scheduled interviews for MPA Director.
Any word on Eastern Carolina and MPA director interviews?
Who is interviewing at Charleston?
re: 23/11/07 2:40 PM and
21/11/07 5:59 PM and
25/11/07 8:24 PM
Well, I trust the Dean at USC SPPD who is a respected Political Scientist over those not getting called who deal with the anxiety-ridden silence by attacking other candidates on a blog...
BTW - UCSD Poli Sci IS a Top School (Rank 3 in comparative, 5 in American; 2 overall in production-adjusted score after Cal-Tech)
Regarding discussion of PA/ PM versus PS candidates [26/11/07 9:19 AM and others]: There is a pecking order in academia. Economics is more rigorous than Political Science, for example, and Poli Sci depts and Business Schools hire Economists, who come at a premium. Similarly, Political Science is known to be a more rigorous degree than Public Admin, Public Affairs, and Public Policy. There is a lot of comparing of apples and oranges on this blog (such as ABDs to established APs, and PS degrees with PA). Not helpful folks!
It's very easy to determine who is average and who is not: look how much and where they publish, period. No need to get all psyched up about this. It's all in the databases.
You wrote:
Any word on Eastern Carolina and MPA director interviews?
Who is interviewing at Charleston?
28/11/07 8:44 AM
I heard that East Carolina would be contacting people to set up MPA coordinator interviews in early December but for January sometime.
Charleston is interviewing in January.
Re: ECU and Charleston -- thanks for the info. Next question: any names?
argh. here we go again with the USCD stuff. How many blogs is this going to appear on? Wasn't it already on the American blog?
And I'll take exception to the view of poli sci being a more rigorous discipline than pa. They're just different. For example PA often requires some government experience (which in turn impacts research). Yeah, PA scholars aren't doing the latest in formal quant modeling. But then again, they don't have to...
28/11/07 9:29 AM, Comparing apples with oranges is meaningless, but when apples and oranges are competing for the same position, people would wonder who will win in the end. Also I could not agree with your "pecking order in academia". The so-called rigorous training in Econ Ph.D. programs might be still naive in pure scientists' eyes (physicists, mathematicians, etc.), but they would not disdain economists' work. I would agree with you that PP/PA/PM Ph.D.s have less training in theory, but frankly speaking my observation is that economists in pa/pp schools are more likely to be teaching in a way of disaster.
Anyway, it is a sad fact that PA has no well defined boundary.
RE: PA boundaries
It doesn't have to be: it's a professional field informed by multiple disciplines.
I've never heard of business schools struggle with these identity issues, given that they meet the very same definition. Strange..
"Yeah, PA scholars aren't doing the latest in formal quant modeling. But then again, they don't have to..."
Are you mental? Do you think all PA programs have the same quant training??
Do a little research...
RE: 28/11/07 2:37 PM
if you look on Muntean's website, she also has government (and public management) experience so your comment is irrelevant...A great example of what over-generalizations and ignorance leads to -
RE: PA boundaries
It's not strange. Business schools do not have to struggle with the identity issues because the supply and demand ratio there is quite different. They smartly produce fewer Ph.D.s in business than the demand each year, thus creating a shortage of supply. Also, some areas in business, such as accounting, have begun to gradually close their doors to Ph.D.s from other disciplines (even econ).
On the contrary, PA/PP schools produce more PA/PP Ph.d.s (maybe more than the real demand) and many of them have been poorly-funded, compared with those at B-schools. When they went on the job market, they finally found that the ap positions in PA/PP schools did not go to most of them. Then it comes to the identity crisis of PA/PP Ph.d.s...
The business school might be an exception in academia. Look at the Ph.d.s in biology, physics, chemistry, and more pure/hard sciences, you can find that the faculty job markets in those disciplines are more terrible. Have those people been less rigorously trained in their doctoral education? Are they mentally less capable? Of course not! The mathematical skills or the so-called formal modeling techniques of an econ/PS Ph.D. might be nothing based on the standards of physicists or mathematicians.
No offense to anyone. It is only about demand and supply. The anxiety and frustration here are really understandable.
For this market...at least in the past few years...demand has greatly exceeded supply...
I think the quality of methods training really depends more on the school than on the discipline. Most of the top PA programs (there are exceptions) have very good methods training, better than you would find in many political science departments. I have interviewed at some schools recently where PA PhD students do their methods with PS students, and those courses are nowhere near as rigorous as others I've seen (and indeed taken).
The thing about theory in PA is that there's no a whole lot of it. PS is a borrowing discipline, and PA is even more so. It's the nature of the beast.
Oh, and there are WAAAAAY too many PA PhD programs. I agree. But there are also way too many political science PhD programs. And I don't think the analysis of b-schools is exactly right... I think they produce too many PhDs, too, it's just that their PhDs have more opportunities in consulting and practice, so they get drawn away from the academic market.
5:14 PM, even the demand is growing, the PA/PP job market is still small. That's why the invasion from econ/ps can cause turbulence.
Then what the hell are PA/PP schools doing? They have not produced many excellent academic leaders (I could not recall any big name with Ph.D. in PA/PP). They have not produced many excellent leaders in really world, where many political figures have degrees from law schools or even business schools (like GWB, heh).
right...because they can't get jobs in their own field
Ever heard of Mark Emmert, Michael Crow, or Wlter Broadnax...all university presidents who have PhDs in PA? Oh, how about Donna Shalala?
here we go again...
Come on, folks, show some faith. The PA market hasn't been this good in years. By varying estimates, there are between 60 and 100 generalist PA/management jobs advertised. No matter how big the pool, with this many jobs, the competition is reasonable.
Currently, it seems that the majority of the interviews are hogged by a small group of very popular ABDs+APs. Some of them qill get jobs quickly, some of them will tank quickly. The market will move, and in the end, the good guys win. Amen.
Well, we all know that 28/11/07 5:53 PM went to Syracuse...or teaches there.
The misapplication of economic principles on here is saddening. First, we have job-seekers on the demand curve.
Then, we have a claim that "its only about demand and supply" and that this is to the disadvantage of PA candidates. This argument is patently false, as demand has far exceeded supply in recent years.
And even still, someone argues that "there are WAAAAAY too many PA PhD programs." Again, this suggestion that supply exceeds demand is wrong.
This makes me cry.
Well, I didn't go to Syracuse - never been there - but I have to agree with their point. Lots of leaders came from PA.
Re 26/11/07 3:18 PM
The only persons who benefit from the lack of transparency in this market are those rockstars. Many interview opportunities and job offers are hogged by those rock ABDs&APs, which has greatly delayed the speed of market clearance. However, both deans and job seekers are very sensitive to time cost. It is not surprising that due to the lack of transparency a number of schools will fail to fill their positions and a number of ABDs will end up with nothing each year. This may cause a lot of losses and frustration. As a result, both deans and their search committees have wasted their time, energy and money, while some ABDs, with great pains in heart, will have to postpone their graduation or choose to go somewhere else. The market will move but it moves very slowly, that's why it is important to keep this market as transparent as possible.
Anyway, those established APs back to the job market are like WMD, thus I do not think they deserve any special protection. They should be tough enough, right?
That's a good point that deans may waste their time on candidates they know may turn them down, but in many cases, they are making an active decision to take the risk. I am an AP who has interviewed a few places this year, and in every case I have been clear about where else I am interviewing and when the timetables fall. I have seen some cases (not involving me) where a candidate wanted to accept an offer and cancel another interview that came later, but the interviewing school all but insisted the candidate go ahead and make the trip.
Schools may decide to postpone hires to the following year, but we've seen a lot of that already, with some schools hiring multiple positions this year. I bet they start to work down the list and interview secondary pools of candidates instead of throwing in the towel and searching again.
28/11/07 7:38 PM,thanks for sharing your experiences, i really like the vibrancy of this blog now.
It makes perfect sense for SCs to try to get the best possible candidates thay can get a hold of, without second guessing them.
However, an AP status artificially simplifies the decision process. It certainly helps, but if anything, shold make people devote more attention to trying to make decent comparisons.
Just because somebody is already an AP does not mean that they are any good, or at least as good as a productive person currently an ABD.
I've witnessed a search where the 1st round of interviews failed because the APs invited (both of them) were inadequate. The third interview (abd from a top school) was also bad.
It's like the housing market. Just because a house is built, doesn't mean that its price will keep climbing. Wow,
Why do we even care if a PA phd is famous or in a leadership position? Isn't the phd primarily a teaching/research degree? How many PhD chemists or biologist are world leaders? Would we even hear of most of them without the Nobel? We don't get Nobel's (even if Simon got one). We probably won't be famous even if we are in PS and become president like Wilson. But to think that Wilson could ascend to the presidency today might be a stretch. I realize that a history prof was a president on the West Wing, and that Newt was (as I understand it) a very good history prof, and that Paul Wellstone was a PS prof at one point, but there aren't too many out there.
If I wanted to be a political leader I would have gone to law school, and not go through the hell of getting a PhD
to the comments about the blog getting to personal...
I agree, but...
The is an anonymous blog, should we buy any of the comments positive or negative about anyone here. I could put up a post about myself saying that gosh darn it I'm the hottest thing on the market. Buyer beware, that's all I'm saying.
Asif Efrat (Government, Harvard) interviewing today at Bush School, Texas A & M.
Warigia Bowman (Public Policy, Harvard) Interviewing Monday Dec 3, SUNY Albany, Interviewing Dec 17 Dubai School of Government.
Source: A Classmate
Has anyone heard about the IT job at Maxwell School, Syracuse
The last I heard Fotini Christia is receiving her PhD in public policy, and she is doing very well on the PS job market in both IR, as well as in CP. Perhaps people should tone down their comments re lack of rigor in training in PP programs. . . . .
C'mon, names, names, more names! Who, where, why, how? No, scrap that, just who and where is good enough.
The quality of the school overall is the best predictor of the overall quality of the training of the students, not the type of program.
The one thing that I am unhappy with is that this reasoning could be taken to the extreme in across the board judgements, or at the very least this criterion be assigned more wright that it should have on its own.
My unhappiness is of course due to personal circumstances - I am not from a top school, and I am perfectly aware of how many (most) of the courses I took sucked. But a PhD program is about what you do in it, not what it does for you. So I publish at a good pace and can comfortably hold my own against many of the top school graduates, yet in spite of this I fully expect my CV to be partially discounted on the basis of degree origin.
Just an observation.
Any news about the job at the Univ. of Wisconsin-Green Bay (SPEA)?
How to define the top schools in PA/PP? Should we just use the MPA ranking provided by the US NEWS?
Any news about any job, anywhere?
I must confess that I have some, but for some twisted reason prefer not to share or post them (perhaps to keep the competition anxious?). I hope that not everybody is like me!
Christia has interviewed at Michigan PS Berkeley PS Maryland PS and many other schools. Check the IR blogs and CP blogs if you really want to know.
a great place to check for jobs is the appam website. publicservicecareers.com or something.
Publishing is huge. It is the only way to measure success. school is just a heuristic. CF. Gary King, and John Galbraith
ranking mpa programs is pretty vague, but cross-indexing the top 30 schools across various rankings gives one a sense.
12:01 PM, I am at a top school but I have similar experiences in the doctoral courses. PA schools are usually divided in their micro-foundations, and sometimes people have very little consensus. Yet political scientists, sociologists, and economists would try to convince you that they have the best knowledge in their courses, and if you could not find your own approach, you would be mentally damaged. I found only two doctoral courses in my program are very very useful and I could not remember anything from most other courses. I went to business schools and political sciences for some courses, which prove to be very very helpful. That said, personal choice does matter a lot more than the school environment.
anyone heard about the six jobs at Rutgers's Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy?
Ellen Rubin from Georgia apparently has interviews lined up...anyone know where?
5:05 PM,why don't you just send an email to ellen?
Let's all email her!
This blog has somehow gone from one of rumors to one of the insecure checking out the competition.
At least this blog is active again and occasionally a job rumor regarding pa and policy jobs is showing up.
Rumored that George Mason offer went to a KU student.
How is checking out the competition insecure? If you're unable to give yourself a sober self-assessment against a benchmark, perhaps others are.
Enjoy.
The Mason offer went to Shannon Portillo.
Shannon is great...I could not believe she left high school in 2001...It seems that KU begins to catch up UGA in the PA Ph.D. market.
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