Condescending to academics seems to be in vogue. Some people see the the word “PhD” and immediately adopt the tone people normally use to dismiss very small children they dislike. A perfect example of this attitude is an article recently published in The Chronicle of Higher Education and titled “Embrace Your Inner North Dakotan.” The article’s author addresses academics who are on the job market and who are facing the possibility of having to accept a job in a geographically undesirable area. Just observe the contempt that practically drips off the screen:
Take North Dakota: Why don’t you want to live someplace like that? Are you imposing class, regional, or political prejudices without investigation? Have you ever actually visited Fargo or just seen the movie (which was not set there, anyway)? Have you talked with someone there—like an assistant professor—for eyewitness testimony?
‘Cause, you know, a person who has dedicated his or her life to research is in need of being reminded to investigate things. Seriously, I wouldn’t talk to a kindergartner int his tone, so how is it acceptable to address academics in their own professional publication in this manner?
The article’s author proceeds to list all the reasons why people who dislike village life and prefer big cities might come to appreciate it. His arguments are based on the idea that such academics have somehow managed to reach the age of 30+ without knowing anything about themselves. As a typical big-city person who passionately dislikes the life of backwater villages where most universities are unfortunately located*, I find the myths this article spreads to be completely idiotic.
Take, for instance, this idea that life is cheaper in Podunk. For a person who is used to big cities, it is insanely expensive. Compensating for the sensory deprivation you suffer on a daily basis costs money. Buying good food one is used to is ruinous in a village where most people are happy gorging on junk. Culture, entertainment, fine dining and acceptable clothes require traveling far and paying a lot.
The most pernicious belief promoted in this article, however, is that life circumstances will somehow transform us into the opposite of what we are:
And, of course, life circumstances change. The small town that seems like a trap when you are single and 27 may begin to look like a comfortable, safe, affordable place to raise a family when you are 32, married, and expecting twins.
This idea didn’t work back in the USSR when it was drummed into us as the pinnacle of philosophical thought and it doesn’t work in North America today. I first came to live in a small town precisely when I was 27 and single. I hated everything about it: the boredom, the vile food, the horrible clothes, the nasty, peroxide-burned hair, the lack of intellectual stimulation, the quiet, the empty streets. Nine years later I’m 36, married, and a huge reason why I’m not expecting twins is precisely that I’m afraid it would be horribly unfair to inflict the boredom, the vile food, the horrible clothes, the nasty, peroxide-burned hair, the lack of intellectual stimulation, the quiet, and the empty streets on a child.
I’ve found a way to compensate for these drawbacks of small-town existence. However, the only reason why I can do that is not that I have changed profoundly and become the opposite of myself but simply that I can afford to invest money into counteracting them.
The article closes with the suggestion that we “look at our outlook.” I have a feeling that the author has spent way too much time at his Podunk U.
* If you dig living in such a place, good for you. You absolutely have a right to your preferences. And so do I.
Clarissa's Blog 
Life is full of choices and individuals bear responsibility for making them. In a tight labor market, if one desires an attractive job – say in the academy – then one may have to pay with that choice by poor geography. That is a part of that choice. One does not moan about it but accepts it as the best constrained decision available. If one desires to widen the choice set, then one must work yet harder, teach better, publish better quality papers etc. Once again, that is part of the overall decision-making. If one is married to a geographically-constrained partner, choices have to be made whether to locate together or apart. Once again, moaning is unjustified. One lives out the life one chooses. That is the essence of personal responsibility.
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Why do you seem to think people who have different tastes from you are not responsible and are moaners and so on? They are not telling you that you have to live somewhere different, have different tastes, etc., or calling you irresponsible for not being like them.
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Well, there’s a lot more to it.
ON THE ARTICLE:
The author appears to believe that all graduate students come from big, sophisticated cities. I have to ask why he is apparently only recruiting from Berkeley, UCLA, UW-Seattle, U of Chicago, Harvard, Columbia, and Yale. Perhaps he is an insufferable snob. I see why he may be having trouble hiring.
There are plenty of excellent graduate programs in non urban areas and although they are a little less famous, they produce good candidates whose expectations for daily life may be less urban. Perelmutter ought to consider interviewing some of them — he may find, to his surprise, that they are more than competent.
Re other aspects of his ND example, well, there are a lot of native Midwesterners trying to flee the snow and the steppes, I know. But others do not mind, or even like it; I find it exotic and charming, for instance. He should take heart.
On the remoteness of his place, that is a tougher problem — not having an airline hub can be a real inconvenience. But, he can take solace in the fact that good schools in the beautiful Pacific coast often have trouble hiring because of the distance from Boston/NY and the cost of real estate. Losing candidates to other schools doesn’t only happen to him, and you just cannot control all factors when hiring.
ON ROWLEY’S COMMENT
Re taking what you can get and then outpublishing people with better situations, I hope Rowley can do that. In my experience this has a lot to do with research resources available in your area, and your support system there. I would also emphasize that in some fields (in the sciences, for example), if you end up somewhere without the right infrastructure, your research program is toast no matter what you do.
So, look before you leap, and do not leap just to please your dissertation director or some other authority spouting platitudes. Think seriously about what you want and why, and do not paint yourself into a situation where you cannot gain access to the materials and tools, or the other sustenance you need *just* because it is tenure track.
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Actually, if you go somewhere without good libraries (I am in a field that mostly uses paper books, so do not pontificate to me about pdfs, and ILL which is not designed to substitute a library), you hobble yourself in research and drive its costs up since you will have to travel so much. And if you go to some of these insular little towns and institutions, you will have so much service work and so many obstacles in teaching and program building, let alone research, that it will not be at all salutary for what I would call an academic program.
All the exhortations about how one should prefer to live in the suburbs come from people who actually have those desires themselves, I have concluded. I notice they also teach to show authority, and do research to claim a fief. I don’t have the same kinds of motivations as they do, or desires either, and I am also a scholar. The hugest tipoff to me in that CHE thread was that so many really liked the idea of being a big fish in a small pond (ick!!! ewww!!!) and wanted “homey” atmospheres at work (again ick!!! ewww!!!).
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“All the exhortations about how one should prefer to live in the suburbs come from people who actually have those desires themselves, I have concluded.”
– I agree. We have this philosophy at my university that the suburban lifestyle is pretty much the only reason to work at our specific institution. So people come together and discuss how students suck, research is impossible to do, everything is horrible but at least it’s all worth it because we get to live in such a great town. For me, of course, things are the exact opposite. The students are great, research goes well, but living in this place requires a lot of effort.
“The hugest tipoff to me in that CHE thread was that so many really liked the idea of being a big fish in a small pond (ick!!! ewww!!!) and wanted “homey” atmospheres at work (again ick!!! ewww!!!).”
– This already tells you a lot about what kind of person the article’s author is. I wouldn’t want to work with somebody like that.
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I am convinced that a lot of the standard advice is designed for this kind of person.
(Long ago I figured out that claiming to be a great teacher was a way to avoid research, and that a great place to raise kids means a cultural wasteland, and I think there is actually a lot more doubletalk; I should actually figure out all the main sentences and their translations.)
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“Long ago I figured out that claiming to be a great teacher was a way to avoid research, and that a great place to raise kids means a cultural wasteland, and I think there is actually a lot more doubletalk; I should actually figure out all the main sentences and their translations.”
– That’s true, it’s like a different language that I’m still only beginning to learn. Maybe we can all contribute to creating a dictionary! 🙂
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The chronicle of higher ed publishes such a load of crap these days. Remember the gem of an article by a dean against tenure?
As a serious academic, I am seriously considering stopping reading it.
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I never did until it came into vogue the way it seems to be now. It is polluting me, I have to quit with you.
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“As a serious academic, I am seriously considering stopping reading it.”
– I know, I feel the same! It feels like it is overrun by these managerial types who always have a boring, simplistic answer to everything.
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Actually, I started reading it because I decided it was important to know the enemy. As long as I can remember that this is the point, maybe I shouldn’t swear off completely.
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“Actually, I started reading it because I decided it was important to know the enemy. As long as I can remember that this is the point, maybe I shouldn’t swear off completely.”
– There are more and more administrators coming in – many without PhDs but with many corporate credentials – who use the same tone and say the same rubbish when talking to academics. They are a real danger.
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Or with corporate credentials first, then some shady PhD tacked on. They are really dangerous, yes.
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Agree, agree, agree. Knowing the enemy is the only reason to read CHE.
Also, I would NEVER raise a family in my quiet little SLAC town. I never got the point of the ‘security’ argument. In fact, I am more scared that a dog bites my child in my ‘quiet’ afordable little SLAC town (because dogs are unleashed, everywhere where I work… they even run into my office) than any kind of ‘danger’ we may experience in a city.
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Oh, don’t get me started on the dogs! There are very few places to walk as it is, but I can’t even walk in the residential areas because of these vicious animals and their nasty owners who think the sidewalks should belong to these creatures and everybody who disagrees doesn’t deserve the consideration due to a human being.
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Exactly.
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Are those “vicious animals” pit bull (mixes) dogs? If they’re only labradors and golden retreivers, you’re extremely lucky.
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There are all kinds. But I find that the tiny yelping ones are the most annoying. They try to sniff my private areas!! I find that very disturbing.
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One thing that this article also failed to address is that, for many aspiring academics, preferring a large, sophisticated city over a tiny podunk town isn’t just a matter of taste, it could very well be a matter of safety and accessibility.
When I lived in a small town, as a queer, Jewish, Native, disabled woman, I faced a huge variety of problems involving my personal safety due to homophobia, racism, antisemitism and lack of accessibility. Now that I am in a medium-size, very progressive city, I feel much safer, I don’t have to worry about accommodations as much, and I don’t have to think carefully before deciding if I should tell people that I have a girlfriend, or that I’m going to temple on Friday, or that I’m Native. Before, I was always thinking, “Am I going to have to deal with fallout from this? Will they hurt me if they find out, or verbally berate me?”
I don’t think that my wish to feel safe, not be called “Kike” or “Prairie n****” or “dyke”, not be denied housing or a job based on my “lifestyle”, or be worried about whether I can find proper support from my work environment is going to go away when I’m an actual academic searching for work, so why the hell should I be told to swallow my “pride” and put my safety and mental health and that of my partner at risk? No job is worth that.
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This is so true! I’m stared at anywhere I go because here I’m considered exotic. When I went to St. Louis last week, I felt this enormous relief at not being gawked at and asked where I’m from on every corner.
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Exactly! I have a disability that prevents me from driving. While I have a much looser definition of walking distance than most people, this does narrow my options considerably.
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ditto, I am not about to take my kids somewhere they’d be the sole brown kids. I’m underemployed and I can deal with that fact for their sake.
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When I was a child, we had an academic neighbor whose son was practically the sole Black child. I am guessing it was necessary – this could have been the only job offer the father had, and so on – but it was definitely not good for the boy.
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Here is one of the comments on the original article, not by me, pasted in:
With the experience I have had, I think that my advice would be somewhat different. Where you live and work can have a huge influence on your productivity, not to mention your happiness and sanity. I was tricked into accepting a position in what would normally seem like a find (a Florida “State supported” University), only to discover that the position they had hired me for–to start a program– was not being supported, the insitution was falling apart, there was no hope of improvement, and almost everyone there was (and is) looking to get out. SO here is some more concrete advice: 1) make sure you are being dealt with honestly and look carefully at the faces of the people around the campus. Are they happy? 2) Avoid states like Florida, Wisconsin, California that are in the process of destroying their systems of higher education and worse, destroying the lives of all State workers. Having parts of your pension stolen and being told your discipline is worthless is not a matter of adjustment. 3) look at the retention rate of the students, the retention rate of the faculty, and ask the last time anyone received a raise. It can tell you a lot. Finally, notice if people seem to be friends with each other, socialize, enjoy each other’s company and whether there is an academic and intellectual environment that seems to be consistent and on-going.
Leaving aside those who will undoubedtly acuse me of whining in an environment where most are conftonted with taking contingent jobs or nothing, I still maintain the right to complain about an environment where faculty are not appreciated, intellectual work is not respected or supported, and one has to wonder whether the institution can survive another year of budget cuts. These institutions, to boot, cannot attract decent administrators (who would want to come to an institution as a dean or President knowing what we now now about what these states want to to with higher education?) The article assumes and environment that existed perhaps 15 years ago. As far as I know, North Dakota is one of the few states that is still actually supporting higher education. The real question these days is, is the agita going to be worth it? Will finding something outside of higher education be more constructive? Should one look at public institutions at all, given the choice? What do you do when you have discovered that you were lied to, and being a good team player who didn’t want to hold up a line, gave the job you already had away with the assumption that you were leaving with the intension of staying at the next institution? Things are rough in HE these days– the article just feels dated and lacking a certain realistic understanding of what exists and the direction of HE in the public sector.
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A great contribution to the discussion: “Really and truly, the only way to counteract is not to get used to it (I have really tried) but to invest money in being gone as much as possible.” http://profacero.wordpress.com/2012/08/19/a-temporary-post/
That’s what I do, too.
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Here’s the comment, currently that post, but that post is going to change, get more formalized, have new material. But the text you’re linking to in the above comment, for posterity 😉 Referring to points made in your post:
0. Rowley’s punitive tone is an example of this condescension. He making these remarks to whom, really … and what characteristics does he imagine this person to have … and what right has he to speak in this way?
1. Article, not an appropriate tone even for a kindergartener, exactly. “How is it acceptable to address academics in their own professional publication in this manner?” Very good question.
2. Life cheaper in podunk, only if you want to take out a mortgage on a large house with yard and never get out of town. And watch out for the home maintenance and cost of gasoline. And it’s true about books, access to culture, etc., etc., cost of these things all go up and if they are things you need professionally then podunk is a bad choice.
3. Most pernicious to me is the idea that you need podunk to raise kids. It is a real imposition on them to have to live somewhere like that. This oft repeated myth is one of the most destructive there are.
I live in a podunk: Maringouin, although right now I am in New Orleans. Maringouin is of course not nearly as bad as some snobbish people imagine, in the ways they imagine, and the university is not as bad as they fear (my high quality of students combined with their unpretentiousness is very refreshing), yet Maringouin is worse than they realize in other ways (the authoritarian patriarchy is very strong and it permeates everything). Really and truly, the only way to counteract is not to get used to it (I have really tried) but to invest money in being gone as much as possible. It is the only way to maintain enough contact with my actual work (among other things) to be able to produce the kinds of research and teaching Rowley, above, is scolding about.
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I’m glad you brought this post here. This is an important contribution to the discussion.
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I cannot believe that there is a town called Maringouin in Louisiana:)
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Maringouin means something in French, right?
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Mosquito!
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Mais, yeah! On a site called, believe it or not, e-podunk, here is town information! 🙂
http://www.epodunk.com/cgi-bin/genInfo.php?locIndex=3466
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Having lived in both a big city and a small town in the middle of nowhere (at the moment), I would have to respectfully disagree on the notion that small towns have crappy food! To the contrary, at least in the town I live in, we have access to some of the freshest food available. It is farm country, so we were surrounded by farms. As such, if you go to the higher-quality markets that source much of their food from the local farms, the produce is incredibly fresh, and some of the farmers even sell their food directly off the farm.
Another thing I love is all of the greenery (trees in particular!), something I did not see as much of in the city. Now THAT SAID, I am not saying that the country life is for everyone. It most certainly has its downsides, the major one being not much in the way of shopping, entertainment, nightlife, intellectual stimulation, etc…personally, I think the ideal would be to live very close to a major city, but outside of it, so that you have access to all that it offers within a short drive, but you are able to live in the beauty of the countryside. Myself, I am intending to move to a major city soon, I’m just not quite sure which one at the moment.
Regarding whether towns are homophobic, racist, etc…I think it probably depends on the culture of the area overall. If you living somewhere out in the backwoods of Kentucky, then maybe. However, if you are living in a small town in California, I’d venture probably not.
Personally I think BOTH small towns and major cities have their plusses and minuses. Towns can be very peaceful and quiet, because not much is going on in them. On the other hand, that’s also the downside, not much is going on 🙂
“* If you dig living in such a place, good for you. You absolutely have a right to your preferences. And so do I.”
Right on.
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In the area where I live, we barely see a tree from one day to another. I remember when I told my father that it was very hot and we were at over 100F, he asked, “In the shade or in the sun?”
I laughed because there is no shade. Especially now when the few shrubs and trees we did have all died because of the drought. 😦
N., however, is more like you in that he really loves the quiet and the peacefulness.
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Yes, it really is a question of which small town, and which city it is, and what your tastes are. I have decided that those who pontificate about such matters are doing so so as to mask the question of resources … does this place offer what you need to have, so that you can be the person you are and that it wants you to be?
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This is a curious case, I think, of a conflict of interest between a profession and its members. The American Mathematical Society, I think around 1980, published something to the effect that mathematicians should consider the job they were accepting and not worry about the locale. The article assured us that every place has its charms and that we could learn to deal with whatever the location was. I was, and still am, quite skeptical about this. In extreme cases, someone simply cannot live in a certain locale because of allergy issues, for example; but the æsthetic issues are equally as important as the medical ones.
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Yes. It hit me yesterday that what all this advice is about, really, is that people are having trouble recruiting — not that candidates are unwilling to be reasonably flexible.
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I have been trying to post this, but the blog will not let me, for some reason. I am trying again:
This is a curious case of a conflict of interest between a profession and its members. The American Mathematical Society, I think around 1980, published something to the effect that mathematicians should consider the job they were accepting and not worry about the locale. The article assured us that every place has its charms and that we could learn to deal with whatever the location was. I was, and still am, quite skeptical about this. In extreme cases, someone simply cannot live in a certain locale because of allergy issues, for example; but the æsthetic issues are equally as important as the medical ones.
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I’m so sorry, I have no idea why the blog suddenly decided to spam you.
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One thing that has changed about the small college town is internet availability.
There are some compensations for small college towns near large metropolitan areas. One can have access to nature and to city attractions. If your idea of weekend fun is a hike in a state park or a birdwatching session or fishing for your dinner, but you also like opera, you can have both if you are willing to commute to the city or small town.
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