On Piranhas, Interviews, and Crossing the River

Eva Bueno On Piranhas, Interviews, and Crossing the River And, speaking of academic conventions, I may as well begin with the mother of them all, the MLA. The 1992 convention, according to Phyllis Franklin, was a glowing time. Not for me, but Franklin says in the spring 1993 Newsletter that the 1992 convention "was a particularly fine meeting: the session for graduate students and the preconvention workshops for job seekers were very well attended, as were sessions on copyright questions, on the history of the book ... on teaching literature, and on the research opportunities posed by the end of the cold war." What particularly strikes me in this letter, whose main purpose was to encourage members to renew their membership in the Association, is the fact that Franklin mentions the session for graduate students and the preconvention workshops for job seekers together with other academic pursuits, as if they were the same thing. What the upbeat tone of this letter needs to forget is the fact that most of those job seekers did not get a job at all. They needed to be mentioned in the Newsletter, though, because their sheer number makes up much of the success of the convention. The MLA has not, to my knowledge, ever done consistent research to see how many of those interviews at the convention actually translate into jobs, and how many of those interviewed go there more than once before they get jobs. Of course, one point that can never be researched is how many of those interviews are conducted just to appease the Affirmative Action and enable universities to hire some local favorite. I cannot speak about all these things. I have no means of obtaining the data. What I do have is my personal history in job seeking . I'll speak about that, because I believe it is necessary that a space for the representation of the personal be opened in the public discourse of the profession. In the middle of February of 1993, 1 got a letter dated January 15 from a somewhat prestigious Pennsylvania university to which I had applied for a position teaching Spanish. The October 1992 MLA }ob List ad for this university said, like all the others, that it encouraged applications by women and other minorities. Because I had the required Ph.D., publications, teaching experience, and so on and so forth, I believed I had a fair chance. In due time, the university contacted me, and asked for and obtained a sample of my publications, my CV and letters of recommendation . Silence followed. I figured the university was not interested in interviewing me. The post-MLA convention letter the chair of 216 the minnesota review the search committee sent me simply stated that the university was "pleased" to have had the opportunity "to review" my credentials, and for my having shown "interest" in the position. Up to this point, this rejection letter was like many others I have received in my flourishing career as a job applicant. What startled me was the addresser's affirmation that the department had received 500 applications for the position. Five hundred! I wondered in almost disbelief . So, 498 other people received a letter just like mine, in which the university congratulated itself for its good luck for having attracted such a high number of worthy applicants. Some things, however, continued bothering me. Suppose we believe that 500 people did apply for the position. What is going to happen to the 499 others who applied? Who are they? Why didn't they get the chance? Of the one candidate who does obtain the job, what little we know comes enmeshed in inevitable tales of low pay, long work hours, and so on. I recall a recent cartoon in the Chronicle ofHigher Education, where we see a chair congratulating a new professor: "Congratulations! You have just been appointed assistant professor! We'll expect you to teach three courses, sit on four committees, grade four hundred papers, and turn out at least one original article each term" (Nixon). But still, all who apply for teaching jobs would rather have the fate of this assistant professor. Graduate schools continue to do business...