An Academic’s Vengeance

Have you heard the story of a recent hire at Nazreth College? The person hired rejected the job offer in a way that was deeply humiliating to the college. Hiring committees often treat candidates very poorly, so I have a suspicion that the candidate gave the college exactly what it deserved.

Of course, we all know that, for people of a certain social class, women can only be victims. So the story of a woman who unleashed her vengeance against a dinky little college by making it the laughing stock of the country is being spun as a story of a pathetic little creature victimized by all-powerful rulers of the world.

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63 responses to “An Academic’s Vengeance”

March 15, 2014

May be I don’t understand something, but she didn’t reject anything. She asked about (possibly) getting a few additional things, and was immediately rejected. What vengeance are you talking about?

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cliff arroyo

March 15, 2014

I think the idea is that she knew that (a) these requests were not unreasonable (b) they would be rejected and (c) people in the know would regard the institution in question as a second rate podunk kind of place that cannot/will not provide new hires with normal working conditions.

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1. J. Otto Pohl
  
  March 15, 2014
  
  This is not my interpretation at all. She had already been given an initial offer by the College. She was countering with her own proposal. The college is of course free to say that their initial offer is final and they are not changing it. But, it is very rare for colleges or anybody else to then completely rescind their initial offer. For instance in getting books published authors are always advised to try and improve the initial offer. Frequently, they can get a little bit better conditions than the initial offer, particularly regarding free copies and sometimes even royalty rates. Getting an advance on an academic book is almost impossible. Even in the one case (I turned it down) where the publisher refused to improve their initial offer in any way they did not rescind it in response to my attempts to negotiate more copies. In another case I got both more free copies and slightly better royalties. What happened here would be like if I went to the market/bazaar/rynok and asked how much for a loaf of bread and then upon asking for a lower price the market woman refused to sell it to me at all. People haggle over everything in most of the world. Often the initial offer can’t be improved, but almost never is it rescinded in the face of a counter-offer.
  
  Yankee Tourist to Middle Eastern rug merchant: How much for the kilim?
  
  Merchant: For you my American friend only $500.
  
  Yankee Tourist: That is too much I will give you $200.
  
  Merchant: I am sorry I must rescind my original offer. I can not sell the kilim to you at any price. Please leave my shop.
  
  You see how bizarre such behavior is in the bazaar?
  
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  1. Clarissa
    
    March 15, 2014
    
    My sister is in recruitment, and I know from her that prospective employees who start sending lists of demands before they have done a day if work get their offers rescinded immediately. Always. And for an entry-level job? This is a kiss of death.
    
    As for haggling, I find it demeaning and beneath my dignity.
    
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2. Clarissa
  
  March 15, 2014
  
  What she was asking for are not normal working conditions anywhere on the planet. These requests couldn’t have been accommodated no matter how much anybody tried. This was obviously a way of thumbing her nose at the department. And I have a feeling they might have deserved it.
  
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3. Clarissa
  
  March 15, 2014
  
  With a teaching load of 4:4, it is not possible to have 3 new preparations per year. The first 8 preparations will be new, there is no way around that.
  
  And everything else is equally bizarre.
  
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4. Evelina Anville
  
  March 15, 2014
  
  “What she was asking for are not normal working conditions anywhere on the planet. These requests couldn’t have been accommodated no matter how much anybody tried.”
  I’m not sure about that:
  
  1) A staring salary of 65,000 is fairly reasonable for NY–where the school is.
  
  2) A semester of maternity leave– not exactly standard but something which is done. I know some schools which do this regularly. The maternity leave usually requires some
  type of extensive administrative project that can by completed at home.
  
  3) Pre tenure sabbaticals are virtual guarantees at research universities.
  
  4) No more than three new class preps a year for three years is fairly standard for new faculty. (My university–which is a 3/3 teaching load– keeps preps at about 4 a year.)
  
  5) Asking for a later start date– many new faculty who have prestigious postdocs will ask for later start dates. The university won’t accept it all the time. But asking is pretty de rigueur.
  
  So I think she was asking for things that can be expected at research universities. The school wasn’t wrong to reject these requests of course. But rescinding the offer is shocking to me.
  
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  1. Clarissa
    
    March 15, 2014
    
    How is it possible to have 3 new preparations per year when the teaching load is 4:4 and you are a new hire? This is arithmetically impossible.
    
    A prestigious postdoc on the Humanities is an oxymoron. Taking a postdoc even at Harvard makes you an untouchable on the academic job market. And pre-tenure sabbaticals are extremely rare. Where they go exist, they are offered up as the very first thing that is mentioned at a job interview. In return, one is expected to do something ridiculous, like work in summer and over Christmas break.
    
    And the salary of this kind is not offered even at the Ivies.
    
    People who are hired but refuse to show up for work for a year are either very developmentally challenged or are refusing the offer. I’m sure in this case it’s the latter.
    
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5. Evelina Anville
  
  March 15, 2014
  
  “With a teaching load of 4:4, it is not possible to have 3 new preparations per year.”
  Yes it is. If one teaches multiple sections of a course. If she taught 8 sections Philosophy 101 for instance, she would have one prep.
  
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  1. Clarissa
    
    March 15, 2014
    
    People don’t hire professors at $65.,000 to have them teach 8 sections of 101 courses. Irrespective of that, all these sections are still listed as new preparations when you teach them for the first time. I taught two sections of 201 last semester and listed them both as new preparations.
    
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6. DJ
  
  March 20, 2014
  
  Otto, one difference between this situation and your bazaar example is that the rug merchant is not selling a perishable good. An academic offer is very much perishable, because once an applicant on your short list commits elsewhere, they become unavailable for your position. (Here I don’t mean perishable in the sense of any of its unfortunate connotations, just in the economic sense.)
  
  A closer comparison would be to something like airplane tickets. If you wait a day to decide, that plane ticket might very well no longer be available for sale at the previous price. I still think it’s a pretty sociopathic move to withdraw a job offer, but at least I must acknowledge that there can be a rational economic justification for doing so.
  
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  1. Clarissa
    
    March 20, 2014
    
    “A closer comparison would be to something like airplane tickets. If you wait a day to decide, that plane ticket might very well no longer be available for sale at the previous price.”
    
    – That’s a very good comparison.
    
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Evelina Anville

March 15, 2014

I’m not sure how this constitutes vengeance in any way. She politely asked for some (fairly routine) additional provisions. The college refused and, in a fairly shocking move, promptly rescinded their offer. Cliff A. above seems to think she knew the provisions would be rejected but I don’t see that interpretation at all. Am I missing something?

I don’t necessarily think this is about female victimhood but I don’t see strength or vengeance at all. I only see a fairly frightening maneuver by a prospective employer.

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Clarissa

March 15, 2014

Routine? Are you serious? She wouldn’t get this if she were being hired by Yale or Cornell in a superstar quality. And a candidate who is already tainted by a postdoc? This is ridiculous. Of course, she knew she was rejecting them.

As for the employers, it’s obvious that all they can do in this situation is cut their losses and scram.

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1. Evelina Anville
  
  March 15, 2014
  
  Some postdocs can be very prestigious. Mellon postdoctoral fellowships for instance usually lead to offers from research 1 universities.
  
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  1. Clarissa
    
    March 15, 2014
    
    I know somebody who accepted a postdoc at Harvard. He spent the next 5 years sitting at home unemployed.
    
    I’d advise somebody to take a job outside of academia before accepting a postdoc in the Humanities anywhere. One can claw one’s way back in after a postdoc but that would take a lot of groveling.
    
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2. JaneB
  
  March 15, 2014
  
  All of these things would be perfectly reasonable to ASK about at my (very middling) UK university.
  
  Here, post-docs in the humanities are rare, but that makes them MORE prestigious. PDs as in research posts, not one year teaching posts)
  
  It is normal to ensure that proper maternity leave is written into the contract (and where women are not hired that often, it does get missed, so I know people who have had to ask that it be there – even if one has no intention of having children immediately) – the US stinginess over parental leave seems quite barbaric and counter-productive from the European perspective (even if my current schedule is heavier because of a colleague being off, I think its best for her, baby, her family and society that she IS off, if she chooses to use her entitlement).
  
  Asking for more repeats and fewer new preparations is normal and often considered appropriate for new people even in a teaching-intensive place – makes sense to help the new colleague bed in to the system more effectively.
  
  I’ve never heard each section of the same module being considered a new preparation before, in the US of UK, so it sounds like Clarissa’s university is uncommonly generous there!
  
  Asking for a pre-tenure sabbatical – that one is the only one that seemed to me like a potetnially bad reading of the context.
  
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J. Otto Pohl

March 15, 2014

BTW: Nazareth College (it is spelled the same as the city in the Holy Land) is one of the hundreds of places I applied to that did not even give me a rejection letter yet alone an interview. So they do not have a reputation for manners.

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Clarissa

March 15, 2014

That’s what I suspected! I think they must have treated this candidate really poorly and she lashed out at them. And good for her.

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March 15, 2014

\\ And a candidate who is already tainted by a postdoc?

Why tainted?

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Clarissa

March 15, 2014

The postdocs in Humanities are taken by those who didn’t get hired anywhere and have no other options. Just the concept itself is completely ridiculous in the Humanities, and everybody knows it.

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1. Evelina Anville
  
  March 15, 2014
  
  Clarissa and I differ on this. Every single one of my friends who had Humanities postodcs found employment at very good universities after the postdoc term ended (and I’m talking about 5 different people–small sample size but significant in my personal pool of experience.) I applied for a few posrtdocs and didn’t get them but did get a tenure track job. It depends on the postdoc. Some humanities postdocs are quite prestigious and have low teaching loads.
  
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  1. Clarissa
    
    March 15, 2014
    
    The thing is, many people think as I do and some of them end up on search committees. I’d never agree to hiring anybody with a postdoc for ideological reasons. People who participate in this charade and help promote this disgusting practice should not be rewarded. There is absolutely no reason to have postdocs on Humanities. They are just a way of exploiting people. They should not exist.
    
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2. Evelina Anville
  
  March 15, 2014
  
  I guess I just don’t understand how they are exploitive. One of my friends with a humanities postdoc taught a 1/1, made 50K and finished a book manuscript during his term! Another woman taught a 2/2, made 42K and increased her teaching repertoire. What’s exploitive or disgusting about that?
  
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  1. Clarissa
    
    March 15, 2014
    
    They are exploitative because they are a way of getting peoples labor without giving them the title of Professor they deserve, allowing them to progress towards tenure and discarding them a year later. These should be TT jobs. And it’s a crying shame that TTs are beimg destroyed and substituted by these invented postdocs that never existed and should not exist.
    
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3. JaneB
  
  March 15, 2014
  
  In Europe a post-doc in the humanities is a prestigious research position. Is this not the same in the US? I mean, I’ve seen people in blogs write about post-docs that are more like visiting lecturer positions, i year full time but otherwise like adjuncting, and from my own experiences post-doc positions seemed less common in the US or Canada than in the UK outside of biomed and hard sciences, but they were still seen as valid and valuable career moves.
  
  (and though I have no personal anecdata about the modern languages, I have several friends in medieval languages both here and in the US including two hispanists (is that the word?) who have had no ill career effects from post-doccing…)
  
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  1. Clarissa
    
    March 15, 2014
    
    What can possiblybe prestigious about having no status, no money, no permanent position and not moving towards tenure while facing the job market again and again while your peers start their careers and adult lives?
    
    Im really, really bothered by disgusting ultra-rich corporations like Yale inventing this ridiculous myth of a “prestigious postdoc” which is nothing but a way of destroying tenure track jobs. Anybody who participates in this charade is my personal enemy. Even if they have convinced themselves that this degradation is amazing for their careers.
    
    When one graduates wih a PhD, the only reasonable thing is to work under a title of Professor. Everything else is definitely not prestigious.
    
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  2. Clarissa
    
    March 15, 2014
    
    I witnessed these postdocs in the Humanities being invented. And at that time everybody realized that they were nothing but a way to destroy tenure and exploit people. But just a few years have passed, and I see people having accepted their existence completely and even defending the whole sorry thing. This makes me feel very desperate. If tenure is abolished tomorrow, people will probably be upset for two days but then will forget that it even existed. These really horrible practices are being pushed on us and people just erase this from their memories.
    
    I’m obviously not directing this at people in the UK who are in no way at fault here. But people I know personally who used to agitate against the creation of postdocs with me are now all seeing no problem with them. Of course, they all have tenure or are pre-tenure now.
    
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4. musteryou
  
  March 15, 2014
  
  “What can possiblybe prestigious about having no status, no money, no permanent position and not moving towards tenure while facing the job market again and again while your peers start their careers and adult lives?”
  
  My conception of an “adult life” is you put yourself in physical danger. Otherwise that is not an “adult life”. That’s what I saw in my father, going to war. Not in my mother, who stayed at home and wasn’t really treated like an adult by anybody.
  
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5. Z
  
  March 15, 2014
  
  I agree that they should be TT jobs but I’d still have loved one. I rushed my dissertation and then filed it, moved, and started a TT job all in the same month. In a very foreign institutional culture with 3 new preparations. I have never recovered. A postdoc with 1 course in field at a place with a research culture would have given me time to unwind, look about me, and a chance to go on the market in peace.
  
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  1. Clarissa
    
    March 15, 2014
    
    Soon we will not have any tenure or tenure-track. Just a succession of postdocs and adjuncting jobs, and people will convince themselves that these low-paid exploitative positions are prestigious and amazing for them.
    
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6. Betty Cook
  
  March 15, 2014
  
  As for the post-doc issue you raise, that’s an interesting idea that I have never heard before. I would think it depends on the post-doc. The Society of Fellows gigs ofter rather enviable working conditions, and people emerge from those victorious all the time. Of the two institutions who’s SoFs I am familiar with (not Yale, which you mentioned), they seem to serve as a sort of waiting place for the host department to get the line ready, rather than the opposite. I do have one friend who tried to negotiate a remaining post-doc year into his contract after getting an offer from a (non-US) SLAC, and they shamed the shit out of him for asking, treating it like the suggestion was tantamount to a slap in the face. But they didn’t rescind.
  
  If the ethical issue is rejecting the post-doc as an exploitative invention to get cheaper labor and dupe people into thinking they are working toward something when they are not, it feels like a lesser evil. For all the schools that invent post-docs for this purpose, there are a hundred others staffed to the hilt by adjuncts. And despite the fact that no adjunct is deluded about their status, that’s where the tenure tracks are going the fastest, even with all the department chairs shaking their heads at the shame of it all. I just don’t think one can lump them together as equally pernicious. One has (for the most part) health benefits, one does not, one has a living wage if calculated for actual hourly work, one does not. One does (in many cases) include research support (reduced teaching, research funds) so that one could foreseeably continue a project they wanted/needed to see through, the other is (in all cases) the opposite of that.
  
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  1. Clarissa
    
    March 16, 2014
    
    Postdocs, adjunct positions – this is all equally exploitative. Why are we kidding ourselves by trying to find different shades of exploitation and gauge which one is less evil?
    
    I honestly never expected this thread to turn into a defense of one of the ugliest ways of exploiting academics. I find it nothing short of tragic that this is being defended by academics themselves.
    
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7. JaneB
  
  March 16, 2014
  
  “When one graduates wih a PhD, the only reasonable thing is to work under a title of Professor. Everything else is definitely not prestigious.”
  
  Right… so _any_ other career than one allowing you to be called professor is not prestigious? I doubt that’s what you meant? Also, aren’t adjuncts called professor in the US? I will also assume you are talking about the humanities only here – post-doctoral positions are a route into many and varied careers, including that of the researcher-who-does-not-teach, in STEM disciplines.
  
  Clearly you mean something different than I do by the term “post-doc”. A one-year post with a substantial amount of teaching including responsibility for modules is what we’d call a fixed-term lecturing contract, and is a perfectly legitimate job as long as it isn’t one that is refilled by a different person every year. A post-doc is a position where the person draws salary for a fixed period in order to do research, whether designed by themselves or as part of a team with an in-post academic who secured the funding, and is typically undertaken to work with a different mentor using different approaches than your PhD supervisor, to do research in a different environment or on a different problem etc. – and for many offers an important transition space from the stresses of the end of the PhD and the often-toxic or stale environment of a grad programme you’ve been in for years, an opportunity to demonstrate to yourself and others that you have more research in you than just your PhD, a chance to try out some of the aspects of an academic role without the pressures of the tenure track, time to make oneself more attractive for the market.
  
  A prestigious post-doc is not prestigious because of the place it is held at (although the chance to make connections has its values, especially for someone who did a PhD at a place which is part of a different network geographically or academic-politically), but because of how competitive it is to secure the funding (usually on the basis of a research proposal by the applicant).
  
  We’ve just taken on five new academics in my interdisciplinary department, and both our top choices for the humanities posts came from such post-docs and indeed both are starting later than we ideally wanted in order to finish up their positions. Now I don’t believe that’s universal, there are many different experiences out there, including the ones you’re describing here – but your universal dismissal seems… unscholarly, which is not typical.
  
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  1. Clarissa
    
    March 16, 2014
    
    When people have to accept postdocs because they need money and can’t find a job, that’s OK, I guess. However, they should at least understand that the only reason this practice exists is so that some administrator can buy a new yacht. When people are being robbed and exploited because if somebody’s naked greed yet create elaborate defenses for their own exploitation, that is just sad.
    
    What is the most appalling about the whole thing is this promotional spiel aimed at convincing people that this practice exists for their own good.
    
    No, I’m mistaken. The saddest thing is that people are desperate enough to believe the promotional spiel.
    
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March 15, 2014

I know somebody who made a PhD in English lit in Israel, and then left to USA for a postdoc in English speaking country. Or is it a different situation? Is he tainted too? Getting a PhD abroad can be impossible for some people.

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Clarissa

March 15, 2014

People take these postdocs when there are no other options, but that’s a bad situation and their chances to get hired are severely curtailed.

Americans hate hiring people even with ultra-prestigious PhDs from overseas. Just ask Otto Pohl.

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Evelina Anville

March 15, 2014

“People don’t hire professors at $65.,000 to have them teach 8 sections of 101 courses.

For the east coast, 65,000 isn’t insane. Looking at the Chronicle table, I would bet she was offered 60,00. (Unthinkable in the Midwest but not unreasonable on the east coast.) And again, she’s thinking research salaries. I know someone who got an offer from a big research school and her starting salary was $70,00.

” all these sections are still listed as new preparations when you teach them for the first time. I taught two sections of 201 last semester and listed them both as new preparations.”

No matter how you or your institution count courses, she was asking to teach multiple sections of the same class–instead of 8 sections of different courses.

Overall, I really think she was asking for things that are fairly expected from more research intensive institutions. She probably didn’t expect to get all her “demands” but also didn’t expect the school to rescind the offer. I truly think she was negotiating and the university acted in bad faith.

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J. Otto Pohl

March 15, 2014

According to the discussion on the Philosophy Smoker the average salary for Nazareth University is 58K a year for assistant professors and it is probable that the philosophy department is considerably below that.

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1. Clarissa
  
  March 15, 2014
  
  If it were just a salary, then OK. But salary, sabbatical, preps, and by the way, I’m not going to show up on campus at all? This is anything but a negotiation.
  
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Clarissa

March 15, 2014

I know people who got hired at Yale, Cornell and Columbia (and not out of a postdoc). None of them got anything even remotely like these conditions.

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Clarissa

March 15, 2014

And this isn’t even important. What matters is that she was asking for a completely different job from the one offered. It’s like meeting a guy and saying, “If you were tall, blond and 25, I’d totall date you. Pity you are short, dark and 40.” What else can this be but a rejection? And a pretty cruel one at that.

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1. Evelina Anville
  
  March 15, 2014
  
  I guess I’ve seen people ask for those types of things at my institution during negotiations. And I’ve known people who asked for those types of things at others. She was still willing to take the job– a 4/4 at a small school. She just wanted some incentives. I am betting anything she thought they would reject some of her items but that they would counter offer with at least one of the things she asked for. I really think this was a negotiation gone wrong.
  
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  1. Clarissa
    
    March 15, 2014
    
    I can’t imagine them wanting to see her again after this email. If she were some sort of a tenured superstar, then maybe, but even then this snooty email would be too much. But a postdoc in a dying field? This just doesn’t make sense.
    
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March 15, 2014

She asked for a lot and listing them like that in e-mail made it look like more. Reading the e-mail, what I see is someone who is going to have more demands later on. Someone who expects special status. And if they are going to be absent from campus that much, they will not become part of it. In general, I have found that when you hire people at vastly different conditions than the rest of the department, they never become particularly useful. Deciding to get someone really famous in, yes, but not if they haven’t already worked as regular faculty.

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Clarissa

March 15, 2014

Yes, this is what I was thinking.

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Thoreau

March 15, 2014

1) Maternity leave seems like the sort of thing that should be handled by institutional policy, not case-by-case negotiation. By law the school is supposed to grant it, so that shouldn’t have even been on the table. But once it was on the table, the whole thing gets wrapped in layers of legal implications. What a mess.

2) Salary is a standard negotiating point. I don’t know the Rochester area well enough to say if $65k is reasonable, but salary requests are pretty standard.

The school should have either made a counter-offer higher than their original offer but lower than her request, or said that they simply cannot meet the request and the original offer stands.

3) Pre-tenure sabbatical: Utterly routine at some schools, and unheard of at others. These things are matters of institutional policy, and should be handled as such. If the school doesn’t give anybody else a pre-tenure sabbatical you can’t negotiate one.

She should have done her homework to find out what sabbatical policy is. EIther a pre-tenure sabbatical is guaranteed or impossible. Either way, not a negotiating point.

4) Delaying to finish a postdoc: This is completely acceptable in some fields and unheard of in others. Some institutions actually like deferring a new expense for a year, and some hate it because they have needs that have to be filled ASAP. I don’t know the norms of her field. I will say, though, that if you apply for a job with a specified start date, you should be prepared to start on that date.

5) 3 new preps: On a 4-4 load, this one is a tall order. Some schools give a reduced load in the first year (mine did, and we usually have a 3-3 load), so in principle she could teach, say, an intro or GE class both semesters of the first year, teach one other new course each semester, and on a half-load this would be just 3 new preps. Then the following year she recycles some of those preps, maybe teaches multiple sections of the same GE or intro (probably pretty common), and thereby gets only 3 preps again.

Honestly, minimizing new preps is the sort of thing that humane chairs often do for new faculty. However, (1) showing too much ambivalence about new preps goes against the spirit of a school that emphasizes breadth and undergraduate teaching. Many faculty at teaching-oriented schools consider the breadth of courses they teach to be one of their intellectual strengths. (Indeed, I’m proud of the new directions that my research took after I taught a class outside my specialty and realized I could apply some of those ideas to my research.)

A better way to frame the request would be “I want to make sure that in my first few years I have the time to focus on really doing things well for my students, and getting things down. Could I get a commitment to teach some of my classes 3-4 times in a row, so that I minimize new preps and really hone what I’m doing for my students?”

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Betty Cook

March 15, 2014

3/3 prep for 4/4 load does not strike me as that huge, there are ways of designing it. And it really depends on the message they communicated during her campus visit, no? They could have insinuated the moon. And for the other things, also not so otherworldly to read as outright disingenuous to me. Or not so otherworldly to transcend the option of just being politely rejected, without rescinding. Clueless or impossible at Nazareth, sure, but not disingenuous. (Regionally, not that far off. The list she made might be a pretty standard U of R humanities package, though chop some off that salary. I don’t read her negotiation as an f-you. That doesn’t make sense professionally, even if they treated her badly. To think she played this to draw the foul––have her offer rescinded (which she could advertise) out of the embarrassment created by her “rejecting them”, paints W as some sort of evil genius. Maybe she is (or maybe you know something I don’t). I don’t think the reverse is then true, that if not evil genius, than hapless victim. I don’t know anything more from her than the post on Philosophy Smoker, but she strikes me as rocking it, and it seems the comments all over the place are pretty mixed in terms of ‘poor girl’ and ‘entitled brat’––the latter, from a gender perspective, seems a hell of a lot more problematic. The only moment anyone in this profession has any power to see their needs and desires met is at negotiation. That this might in fact be untrue is chilling for all, because regardless of gender, we are all pretty hapless up against institutional power. Calling it power, and calling out the exploitation of that power, seems the least anyone can do.

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Clarissa

March 16, 2014

I have no idea where this (very recent) myth that one has to negotiate before accepting a job comes from but it’s nothing but a silly myth. The most universities (and businesses) can offer to an entry-level candidate is a few thousand in salary. This translates to a few bucks on every paycheck, and is hardly worth antagonizing future colleagues before doing a day of work.

I agree that the woman who wrote the email rocks and I find it entertaining how she wiped the floor with this school. What is bizarre is that so many people see this as a story about negotiation, which it very obviously is not.

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1. Shakti
  
  March 16, 2014
  
  I know I’m naive, but I’ve never come across a job that I could reasonably negotiate a salary before accepting. I’ve come across a lot of literature that suggests that you should negotiate your salary or be penalized for the rest of your life, because most organizations do not list their salary range. On the contrary, they do the best to get you to throw out a number, or give up your salary history before they consider your application. Perhaps I miss that this negotiating only happens for a certain class of people. Perhaps I’m applying to the wrong types of jobs.
  
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2. Z
  
  March 16, 2014
  
  Oh, I always ask for things, just not in this way. A lot of what she is asking in this mail, I ask during the interview. Are there pre-tenure sabbaticals, what about maternity leave, etc., but also things I expect they will say yes to but just want to make sure. Smaller things. An office to myself or not? Computer? what kind, new how often? is summer teaching a possibility … or on the other hand, is it hoped I will want it? do they want me to work on study abroad, or do they want me to conserve my energy? what are travel funds like? etc.
  
  With all of this information then there is less to ask about when the offer comes through. I do ask about salary, I just don’t demand. I also ask about startup funds, including things that would benefit everyone, like library books. I am applying for a job now where my fantasy is to negotiate for conditions not for me but for others. Just a fantasy but it would be fun to say: I will come if you will transform these non TT people into TT ones.
  
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  1. Clarissa
    
    March 16, 2014
    
    Of course, a conversation during interviewing is entirely normal. But an email with a list of demands after an offer has been made is not conducive to anything positive for anybody.
    
    Good luck with your applications!!!!!!!!
    
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3. DJ
  
  March 20, 2014
  
  “The most universities (and businesses) can offer to an entry-level candidate is a few thousand in salary. This translates to a few bucks on every paycheck, and is hardly worth antagonizing future colleagues before doing a day of work.”
  
  Wow, this comment on salary betrays a severe lack of understanding of math.
  
  Each $1000 increase in starting salary, after taking into account compounded growth over a typical career, is worth about $100000 in lifetime earnings. That’s one hundred thousand dollars.
  
  If you invest that money rather than spend it, each $1000 increase in starting salary is worth about $250000 in retirement savings. For example, negotiating $3000 in extra salary at the start of your career translates into $300000 more earnings over the course of your life, or $750000 more at retirement.
  
  We are not just talking a few bucks, and we are not talking about worthless considerations. The single biggest money mistake that anyone can ever make (and sadly which many people often make) is failing to understand the meaning of compound interest.
  
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  1. Clarissa
    
    March 20, 2014
    
    We are talking about academia. These starting salaries undergo almost immediate transformations as a result of merit pay and promotion.
    
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4. DJ
  
  March 20, 2014
  
  Merit pay and any other sort of pay change is applied on top of base salary. It does not in any way affect the analysis.
  
  I’m an academic. I also have industry experience. I’ve seen both sides. I know what I’m talking about. Honestly, there’s nothing remotely controversial or debatable about this calculation. It’s just a straight interest computation from high school.
  
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  1. Clarissa
    
    March 20, 2014
    
    “Merit pay and any other sort of pay change is applied on top of base salary.”
    
    – It’s applied to some, not applied to others. There is never a uniform merit pay that is added to the unchangeable “base salary.”
    
    In business, leading recruiters offer the same advice about haggling for these dimes to add to your initial salary as I do.
    
    “It’s just a straight interest computation from high school.”
    
    – Life is more complex than high school arithmetic.
    
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5. DJ
  
  March 20, 2014
  
  How does a change in pay fail to apply to the previous level of pay? By definition, change is A – B. If I get a merit increase, the $3000 raise from my initial negotiation remains intact. This is the case at every school I’ve ever heard of.
  
  I am not talking about dimes, and you are not talking about dimes. We are talking thousands of dollars in salary. That should be clear.
  
  Of course life is more complicated than high school arithmetic, but THIS calculation is not. I have a PhD in mathematics. I could apply all sorts of advanced math tools if needed. But I don’t, because this discussion is simple.
  
  You’re wrong. Just admit it, or at least stop arguing.
  
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  1. Clarissa
    
    March 20, 2014
    
    “How does a change in pay fail to apply to the previous level of pay? By definition, change is A – B. If I get a merit increase, the $3000 raise from my initial negotiation remains intact. This is the case at every school I’ve ever heard of.”
    
    – Yeah, if. But once you have made everybody regard you as a nuisance, chances are you are not getting that merit pay. Or getting a lot less than you would have without the initial haggle.
    
    “I have a PhD in mathematics. I could apply all sorts of advanced math tools if needed. But I don’t, because this discussion is simple.”
    
    – This isn’t about mathematics. This is about relationships between human beings. 🙂 I have autism, so I would vastly prefer to live in a world where simple mathematical rules guide everything we do. But reality is different. Everybody should do what they want, of course. But from everything I’ve seen, haggling over an initial salary is a very bad move.
    
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6. DJ
  
  March 20, 2014
  
  Well sure, I fully agree that $1000 or even one million dollars is not worth poisoning the well. Knowing how hard to push for that pay increase is outside the realm of mathematics. I’m just saying, please, know the magnitude of what you’re asking for. In science, multiple offers are common, and negotiating for a match is utterly routine.
  
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  1. Clarissa
    
    March 20, 2014
    
    “In science, multiple offers are common, and negotiating for a match is utterly routine.”
    
    – Ah well, multiple offers change the situation dramatically. I agree completely, with multiple offers one gets a completely different environment.
    
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Jonathan Mayhew

March 16, 2014

There is a problem with listing this many items that you want to negotiate for. Suppose the university really is not going to be able to do any of this at all. Then they say, sorry, and the person accepts the job anyway because that’s the only job she gets. The person could then be a bit resentful. I also found it strange that the idea she would come a year late is buried half way down the list. That’s a major deal. Bad strategy, that could backfire, as it did.

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Bob Basil

March 16, 2014

FWIW, Nazareth is an excellent, small school. I know several people who went there – it’s in the town next door to where I grew up – including my Mom. Many went on to prestigious graduate programs (Berkeley, Columbia).

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Jonathan Mayhew

March 17, 2014

I suspect what happened was that 4 out of her 5 requests had to do with teaching less, later, with fewer preparations… Even the maternity leave, with is legit to ask about, will result in her teaching less during the next few years. That sends an overwhelming message to a teaching college.

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