Liberal Arts College vs. Research I University: Deathmatch

Jason Mittell, a media studies scholar at Middlebury College, recently wrote about his experience being a researcher at a liberal arts college. Mittell’s offering points to and comments upon a related article in the Chronicle of Higher Education by Kristen Ghodsee, who explained her path from UC Berkeley graduate student to Bowdoin professor.

Both Ghodsee and Mittell question the assumption that liberal arts colleges, unlike Research I universities, are not places where scholars can be research active, resulting in “academic death.”

I read both pieces on a rainy, lazy spring afternoon in Atlanta at the end of our semester at Georgia Tech (a semester I had off from teaching as it happens). Maybe I’m feeling overly calm and uncharacteristically even-tempered, but the reaction I’m coming to is something like, “it all just depends.”

Georgia Tech is not only a Research I institution but a technical institute, so we have an even different culture to compare. And ours differs considerably from other technical institutes. And my station within the institution is likewise unique. A few examples, some of which reinforce aspects Ghodsee and Mittell suggest might be more unique to liberal arts colleges, and some of which question them:

• I was tenured based largely on an output of books (on videogames, for pete’s sake), not 20% acceptance-rate-conference-proceedings or journals as would be expected in science and engineering. In fact, my college has one of the most flexible notion of what “counts” as academic productivity I’ve ever seen, largely due to the wide visibility of different research methodologies within it.
• Tech has a policy of sending a tenure recommendation up to the next level no matter its outcome at the school or college, effectively shutting down the most common temptation for local abuse and torsion normally associated with R1 institutional politics.
• “Service courses,” where they exist, are shared in obligation across all ranks, never foisted on junior faculty.
• All ranks, tenured, and untenured, have equal part in governance, even if politics do sometimes have an effect on how people choose to debate and vote.
• In the BS in Computational Media degree, the main undergraduate program in which I teach, demands constant and challenging attention to curriculum and teaching, and indeed many of us see computation and the liberal arts education as an active research question of which teaching is an integral part.
• Pressures for external funding do exist. The final measure of success is contribution and impact, not dollars in the coffer, but there is no doubt that among certain levels of administration, pie charts matter.
• Our semesters are longer (15 weeks + finals), largely due to the curricular demands of engineering degrees. So we actually teach more than the liberal arts slackers. 😉
• Administering novel degree programs at the undergraduate and graduate levels is a whole lot of work, and we spend a great deal of time doing committee work: curricula, hiring, etc. Sometimes this is gratifying and sometimes it is not.
• At Georgia Tech, we have the opportunity and the burden of collaborating very closely across very different fields. Unlike the tired notion of interdisciplinarity, such effort requires real bridge building (I’ve written about it in more detail elsewhere). This too can be both gratifying and frustrating. In any case, it is a process that relates both to research and to teaching.
• Graduate student advisement might or might not result in “self-regeneration,” a concept both liberal arts professors mention. It is a concept I find fraught with fantasy and nostalgia. No matter, both Ghodsee and Mittell’s discussions gloss over the fact that large institutions often need graduate students for less selfish and more service-oriented reasons, such as teaching classes or sections in undergraduate majors. The scale of R1 education is a different beast, for better or worse.
• Georgia Tech is a part of the public university system but also has an endowment and a large base of sponsored research. It’s possible we have the worst of both worlds, at times. The wealth and independence of top-tier liberal arts colleges is a unique virtue incomparable to private or public R1 institutions.
• I live in Atlanta, a major metropolitan area with a very affordable cost of living. R1 institutions can be found in big cities, small cities, and college towns. So can liberal arts colleges, although generally the top schools are located in more isolated environs. I have to live in (not near) a proper city, it’s just a personal thing for me.

We could carry on like this, each of us offering up the joys and sorrows of our respective institutions and using them as yardsticks for attacking or defending the sort of institution they represent. And there may indeed be trends and generalities worth debunking. But more likely, there are only specific examples — bound to specific institutions and specific programs within those institutions and specific scholars within those programs with specific preferences for their careers and personal lives.

Doesn’t it just depend? On the institution, the department, the program, indeed the faculty member him or herself? I appreciate Ghodsee and Mittell’s desire to defend liberal arts colleges against unfair stereotypes. Bucking the opinion that accepting a position at a liberal arts college amounts to career suicide can only be a noble pursuit. But if that solution points to new, equally indefensible stereotypes of Research I institutions, or if it only helps further elevate the self-worth of elite liberal arts colleges, do we really make any progress?

I’d like to see far more individual advisement in graduate and undergraduate programs, such that academic careers are portrayed as the varied pursuits they really are. The factors that make an academic job “good” will differ from scholar to scholar, school to school. The right answer is different for everyone, or at least it should be. Mittell makes this point in passing (“if you’re on the job market, be sure to judge an institution by its explicit terms and features”), but I think it’s the central idea we need to focus on when talking about the relative quality of academic jobs.

A question emerges: what practical steps can professors do to correct the misconceptions and help new PhDs get the best job for them? Here are ten ideas for principles we might adopt.

1. Each situation is unique. We all have a tendency to generalize, to privilege our own path as the correct one. We have to resist this temptation and give all options equal opportunity.
2. Academic career options should be visible to undergrads. The moment they start thinking about grad school, discuss the various paths through the PhD and the types of jobs available at different sorts and tiers of institutions. Undergrads should have a chance to make informed comparisons between academic careers and another sorts of careers before they consider graduate school.
3. Career planning and advisement is an integral part of graduate education. Not just a one-time meeting with first-year students or a week of a pro-seminar. Programs should take on the responsibility of identifying and explaining the various sorts of academic careers and the often different paths toward each of them.
4. Job satisfaction is a more important success metric than placement. If a program places 90% of its graduates in jobs that 80% of them hate and leave, something is wrong. This should be a factor of concern both to graduate program administrators and prospective students alike.
5. Location and quality of life are a major part of academic careers. The idea that scholarship is monastic, done apart from the world rather than within is a scourge that must be eradicated. Different people have different tastes. Some want to be able to hike or bicycle to work every day. Others want to be near family. Others want access to a particular ethnic or cultural community. These factors are not details, they are endemic to everyday life.
6. Job goals should drive research goals. We must be realistic about the work required to get a particular sort of academic job. The hiring process at a particular program at a particular liberal arts college will differ from that of a large university or a technical institute. In some cases, it would be wise to make such a goal a major part of choosing a graduate school, a thesis advisor, or even a dissertation topic. Like it or not, academics is a marketplace.
7. Other options exist. In science and engineering, it has never been unusual for PhDs to go into industry. In the liberal arts it’s not just considered failure, but not even discussed. Wouldn’t it be better to help scholars find the right matches for their own personal satisfaction, rather than letting them feel like failures come job search or tenure review? We should make these options more visible, and earlier, than they currently are.
8. Work is good. Related to the above, but in a more proactive way. Before I got an academic job, I worked in the technology and entertainment industries full-time. I regularly worked insane hours on real deadlines with serious consequences. I managed people and dealt with managers. I made budgets and had to answer to them later. Again, in science and engineering there is much more cross over between industry and academia. It seems important that more humanists and social scientists have some experience outside of academe, no matter where or for how long, both to understand their own goals better and to help advise future students toward their own goals. Such experience might even help scholars understand what type of academic institution would be right for them.
9. Innovation is required. More than ever, in every academic field, it’s necessary to do more than has been done before. Innovation can come in many forms, including both research and teaching. No matter, competition for academic jobs is strong these days. It’s not enough just to be smart. We have to help students frame their strengths as innovations and match those to appropriate kinds of institutions for them.
10. Culture strengths. Students who are amazing teachers but mediocre researchers shouldn’t necessarily be advised into despair. Those who are mediocre teachers but first-class researchers shouldn’t necessarily be coached toward inspiration. We have to know our students better, help them identify their strengths, and then help them choose whether they want to improve their weaknesses or bracket them. Few of us are as well-rounded as we hope ourselves to be. Let’s be honest about it.