The Changing Academic Market: General Trends and a Berkeley Case Study

Neil J. Smelser · Robin Content

März 2012 · Quid Pro Books

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THE CHANGING ACADEMIC MARKET is the inside story and scholarly analysis
of a leading sociology department's search, during the mid-1970s, to
fill several faculty positions. This was attempted in the middle of the
fundamental changes to the U.S. university and college market that began
in the late 1960s. That sea change is exposed with candid
self-awareness and examined in its practical effects on faculty hiring
procedure, treatment of candidates, affirmative action, a shrinking
market, professors' relations with each other and their political
stances, and recommendations for other academics in various departments
who are undergoing a similar recruitment process. A reviewer at the time
of its initial publication in hardcover (Harvard's Nathan Glazer)
called this book "a unique study ... placed within the context of a wise
and subtle analysis of the changes that have taken place in the past
decade in the academic market," analyzed for the first time with "care
and attention to detail and sound research procedures." Another expert
in the field (CUNY's Dorothy Helly) commented that this is "a rich text
on a crucial aspect of higher education ... the recruitment process
among dramatically increased numbers of Ph.D.'s who include a growing
proportion of women and minorities"; she added that the approach used
"constituted a radical departure from sole reliance on recommendations
from a network of professional colleagues," the usual way of soliciting
and selecting candidates. Now part of the new academic library of Quid
Pro Books, this book is a classic research study and hallways account of
faculty hiring -- of continued value to researchers, teaching
applicants, and present faculty hiring committees. The original
pagination from the previous hardcover edition is embedded into the
text, for continuity and referencing purposes.

Autoren-Profil

Neil Smelser is a senior professor of sociology at the University of California, Berkeley, and former Chair of the department.