Academic Immunity

For those of you living under a rock, the global economy is in a recession. As much as I would like to rant about how it is unreasonable to expect anything to grow exponentially for long time, even if it is the stock market and not a population of rabbits, that is not the point of this entry. The point is that a month ago Blythe and I were talking about how lucky we are to be in academia, where we our jobs are secure. We thought we were immune to the economy. We should have knocked on wood.

Since this observation we have observed the following (in order of increasing craziness):

UIC will not hire postdoc's or tenure-track people next year, so no new colleagues for me.

Columbia cannot hire full time faculty next year, so should Blythe decide to work there again, she will have to be part time, certainly voiding any chance at benefits.

UIC is threatening increase my teaching load to 2-1 next year and to end my postdoc a year early (so a 2 year post doc instead of 3).

Needless to say these are alarming possibilities for us. The last made me more than a little bit angry- I was just told on Saturday. I turned down a number of three-year post doc's for this position, including a VIGRE position at Utah. It seems unethical for them to change the details of my position now, as I no longer have any choice. Even worse, they are considering this change in December, when it is impossible for me to apply to better positions for next year should I decide not to accept the new terms (of course I could still apply to be an instructor somewhere else, but that would basically kill my career). When I first heard of these possibilities, I ran to my offer letter and found careful language saying my postdoc was renewable for up to three years pending satisfactory progress and budgetary approval. It was my understanding when I accepted the offer that these two clauses were formalities. Now I find myself with no bargaining power, and more than a little disenchanted with the department administration at UIC who hired 7 postdocs last year (instead of their standard 3), and will likely have to terminate all of the positions early. Seems shockingly irresponsible to me.

Anyway grad students beware. I will keep the readership updated, but as of today I would not recommend anyone apply to UIC, and I would caution you to negotiate such loopholes out of your offer letter. Ugh.