The Chronicle of Higher Education - Vitae
August 26th, 2014
As the academic labor market turns grimmer, and tenure-track professorships become scarcer, it’s hard not to wonder: Who’s getting hired to the desperately-coveted positions that remain?
It’s a question with serious implications, both for the academy and for the hordes of job-seeking scholars. Yet it’s been over a decade since anyone made much of an effort to come up with an answer—to find the names of the fortunate and talented few, across disciplines, and put them all in one place.
At The Chronicle, we’re well acquainted with the last serious stab at this. You might remember Lingua Franca, the late, lamented journal of ideas and academia that stopped publication in 2001. You might even recall one of the magazine’s keystone features, Jobtracks. Jobtracks wasn’t fancy—it was essentially a lengthy list of names and institutions, representing new hires and tenure-winners across the country—but it was popular and surprisingly comprehensive. Did you land a top job in linguistics around the turn of the century? If so, Lingua Franca was going to come looking for your name.