It is cold. I have had three amazing adventures lately, one with vocabulary, another consisting of a recruiting visit to a local high school, arguably the most valuable thing I have done this year although nobody who “counts” will believe me, and a third resulting in revelations for academic job candidates.
Vocabulary: the word is T-boy. That is of course short for “petit boy,” which is pronounced “-tit boy” and spelled T-boy. I do not understand this term although people have attempted to explain it to me. Apparently a T-boy is your standard macho Cajun male, of a type professors do not meet. T-boys may, although they do not necessarily know how to hunt and/or fish. They might work in places like lumberyards. They are not privileged, but they are entitled. They may have their hair cut to a ducktail. This is the best my interlocutors have been able to do in terms of explanations. They insist I have never met an actual T-boy. Please, anyone who understands this term better than I do, comment.
High school: This was a public high school, allegedly not the best. Most students were not white and most white students were poor. All the signs throughout the school were trilingual, in Spanish, English, and French. All Spanish students paid close attention and some wanted to know about Portuguese. Others were curious about study abroad and already knew which foreign cities they might want to visit. French classes include lessons on Cajun French, and the mathematics program includes pre-calculus and calculus. All classrooms have whiteboards, internet connections, and projectors. Teachers are opposed to NCLB. I was very impressed. YOU might want to consider teaching at a school like this. You would have a certain latitude on program design, and you could be very creative if you so chose. Every time I visit this kind of high school I am impressed in a similar way.
The students wanted to know how different languages sounded. I got them to say entire sentences in Danish and Portuguese, good accents. They did not understand the difference between Denmark and Holland but they understood Danish sentences when these were written on the board.
Job Market: When choosing between or among academic jobs, beware programs in transition and even more, programs which are unsure of their identities. A program which is in transition and says so is less problematic than one which is in transition and cannot or does not articulate this. An insecure program is still more problematic. My spies, who are everywhere, tell me this. Examples and counterexamples:
a. Your school’s football rival. They may hate you openly, but they know you are a worthy opponent. Secretly, they love you. No fear.
b. Any school which considers itself to be competing with yours, but which yours does not notice. They will resent you. Fear.
c. Any school struggling to attain, or to retain R-1 status. That is fine if you already have a clear research record and identity, but if you are just finishing graduate school and have not yet fully established yourself, watch out. They may have, for instance, an exaggerated concern about the absolute rectitude and competitiveness of every publication. You may not get to take any risks, or try out any controversial ideas. Caution.
d. Any school still in transition to an all PhD faculty for upper level and graduate courses. If you are coming from an R-1 graduate school you may not even imagine, much less recognize what is happening at this kind of school. Little do you know that until certain changes were made, causing you and yours to appear on the radar of this school, an instructor could have been promoted to Assistant Professor and perhaps further without the PhD. Imagine the resentment they and their administrator spouses must feel toward the changes you personify. You may understand declared institutional goals, but you are unlikely to comprehend local history and tradition. Exercise extreme caution and read Doña Perfecta.
Axé.
coldhearted scientist وداد 
The high school you describe intrigues me. It would offer a richer experience than the mostly white schools. And now, with things getting so tight, smart and humane teachers are more important than ever.
We did wonders in our prison facility because the supervisor knew how to maximize resources and get the best teaching possible out of us. We did not have the newest or fanciest, but we got what we needed. Above all, we had the right attitude toward our students.
For ages I thought teaching was a lost cause, and I was somewhat concerned that my younger daughter had chosen primary school education as her profession. But now there seems to be hope.
Yes – I think nonwhite makes a huge difference, but then I am prejudiced.
What will save us is the great mix of people we have in the U.S.
So true. If you have a choice do not choose an institution that is trying aggressively to rise in the rankings. Strange things happen there.
I recently had it revealed to me that I was one of the first people here under the regime that you had to have a PhD to rise from instructor to assistant professor and then on up. *That* is why I have always been under the thumb of these locally produced M.A. instructors. Now it makes sense.
I really wish I had known / wish this had been explained … it explains a lot.
Note – John Kennedy Toole, who taught here, was hired as an assistant professor with an M.A. I guess finishing the Ph.D. would have gotten him tenure, or something like that. It’s not a bad system, when you think about it, for lots of reasons … especially if asst. profs. are going to have to teach a lot of composition and things like that, they really can just continue on in grad student mode. Then they make tenure and start publishing toward making full, or start dedicating themselves to program building. Meanwhile their PhD is supported by a real job, not student loans and so on. HM.
Agreed. I think you’re right on the money with (d.). But how many of us have a choice?
Hmm, whether to comment on labor or language… language is more fun.
In Quebec, ‘tit ga, short for “petit garcon” (or little boy) is universal for young male children, but the meaning in the rural area where we spend our summers is more like “little man,” or “little tough guy,” even, emphasizing rough masculinity, not the littleness. Or so it seems to me–I’m not a linguist and my French is beyond execrable.
IF my sense is true, and it may not be, it might be because “garcon” doesn’t map directly onto “boy.”
Quebec – rough masculinity, that’s it! And yes, language is more fun!
*
Carl – not many, but my main point is, it is helpful to know where one is and what is going on / has gone on in terms of institutional culture. I could not have imagined case (d) and its dynamics, and did not understand them when I met them or the remnants of them … people from the situation could not explain it, because they could not imagine what it would be not to have that situation, and I was not equipped to read it at all.
On the rest, I’d say that in first world countries, at least, there are choices (even in this economy) if you are allowed, or allow yourself to look at them. I would have opted out of academia the minute I didn’t get a job at an huge R-1 with PhD programs in my three main disciplines coming out of the gate. I was/am really only interested in that kind of place, and on second choice I’d have worked for some kind of cultural organization or think tank.
But then I got various job offers of a completely different kind and was told it would be immature and impulsive not to ‘give these a chance’ (sort of like dating men in whom one had no interest for the sake of ‘giving them a chance,’ as mothers in my day advised one do). That was the moment I did my career change, and it was not the change I would have chosen for myself. People do not realize it was a career change, but it was. I want my old career back and I am going to take it.
In response to your last comment: I believe that any academic advice needs, at the least, corroboration from non-academic people: friends, neighbors, therapists, hair stylists.
(Unless it comes from trusted academic blogging friends.)
I didn’t know about (d.), so thanks for the tip. I will give a slow, emphatic head nod to (c.).
“I believe that any academic advice needs, at the least, corroboration from non-academic people: friends, neighbors, therapists, hair stylists.”
SO true! On institutions – yes! Virtually everyone I know who is happy in academia was hired at schools similar to theirs and/or schools of the type they might choose to study at themselves. I, miserable and also clearly about to be run out of a (b), moved to a (c), where I tried to be so careful and correct that I stymied all my creativity. That caused me to remain friends with this institution, but not to make tenure at it, for which reason I ended up at the present (d). Several years on here, I finally understand what has been going on, what motivated all that happened, and I understand what my role here has been in terms of institutional history. Still, it took a real old-timer with a lot of perspective explaining things to me for me to finally figure it all out.
The thing is that I did not realize about the transition to all PhD faculty … I just thought there were a lot of instructors and T.A.’s, as there are everywhere. To the untrained eye it *looked* like any other largish state university.