A few of the academic positions posted on C&EN Jobs in the last week:
Geneseo, NY: SUNY-Geneseo searching for an assistant professor of inorganic chemistry.
Chicago, IL: Northeastern Illinois University hiring an assistant professor of organic or inorganic chemistry.
Winona, MN: Winona State University looking for an assistant professor of physical chemistry; can't tell if it is tenure-track or not.
Scarborough, ON: University of Toronto Scarborough wishes to hire "an assistant professor, teaching stream" in analytical chemistry. Any idea what this "teaching stream" is?
Richmond, VA: The University of Richmond is searching for a director of introductory chemistry. laboratories. Looks to be M.S./Ph.D., with Ph.D. preferred.
Salem, VA: Roanoke College looking for two visiting assistant professors.
The List: The joint ChemBark/Chemjobber 2016 Faculty Jobs List stands at 429 positions. Status updates are being done, daily/weekly if possible.
Permanent open thread: There is some moderate demand for an open thread for 2016 academic job search discussions. I encourage it to happen here.
Geneseo, NY: SUNY-Geneseo searching for an assistant professor of inorganic chemistry.
Chicago, IL: Northeastern Illinois University hiring an assistant professor of organic or inorganic chemistry.
Winona, MN: Winona State University looking for an assistant professor of physical chemistry; can't tell if it is tenure-track or not.
Scarborough, ON: University of Toronto Scarborough wishes to hire "an assistant professor, teaching stream" in analytical chemistry. Any idea what this "teaching stream" is?
Richmond, VA: The University of Richmond is searching for a director of introductory chemistry. laboratories. Looks to be M.S./Ph.D., with Ph.D. preferred.
Salem, VA: Roanoke College looking for two visiting assistant professors.
The List: The joint ChemBark/Chemjobber 2016 Faculty Jobs List stands at 429 positions. Status updates are being done, daily/weekly if possible.
Permanent open thread: There is some moderate demand for an open thread for 2016 academic job search discussions. I encourage it to happen here.
"Teaching Stream" means that the individual has a heavy teaching workload and is not expected to perform research except 'chemical education' research. Some Canadian universities are using this model, as research prowess does not always mean a desire (or ability) to teach in the classroom/lecture hall
ReplyDeleteThank you, Anon, for your relevant expertise.
DeleteSo if there's ~2500 chemistry PhDs/year (http://cenblog.org/just-another-electron-pusher/2010/12/too-many-phds-thats-anybodys-guess/) then 429 academic jobs is not awful, is it?
ReplyDeleteDont forget the PhD's from other countries who come to post-doc here in the US and want to stay and compete for positions.
DeleteNumerator: not all positions will absorb a candidate.
DeleteDenominator: Don't forget the residual postdocs from the previous year. ~40% or so of PhDs immediately go into a postdoc, etc., etc.
According to NSF, there were 3850 postdocs in chemistry in 2013: http://ncsesdata.nsf.gov/gradpostdoc/2013/html/GSS2013_DST_48.html
DeleteNumerator, I agree that maybe all positions won't go filled.
DeleteDenominator, I think PhDs/year is a decent metric: I assume (but have no data to back up) that most academic matches are for PDFs 1 or 2 years out of PhD: my (wholly unsupported) sense is that once you start year 4 of a PDF you're not going to academia, I did see a recent tweet on this topic, i think.
So maybe 10 to 15% of PhD grads move to academia? Better odds than going pro in football: also less reward, but tenure is a pretty sweet deal (provided it's not in the middle of BFE). Unsure what odd of tenure are, but have to think >50%?
If this was a steady-state model you could say the number of postdocs going on the market were equal to the ones going in, but this is likely still an inflationary model. On the other hand it's not like most academic job seekers didn't postdoc in the first place.
DeleteSo I also think that PhD/year is the basic metric. + foreign postdocs, - quitting the field.
Mirabile dictu, NSF's breakdown shows the number of foreign-PhD postdocs was 1,188, with 1,323 of "degree origin unknown."
DeleteI've always known we should be blaming Martian PhDs for the PhD surplus problem.
That's 31% of all NSF-supported post-docs coming from overseas. What would be the other sources? One which occurs to me is those who come over here on fellowships, e.g. from either their countries of origin, NATO and perhaps private domestic sources within the US. But I'm guessing...
ReplyDeleteWhere are you drawing the 31% number from?
DeleteThe number of postdocs supported by their country of origin is quite low, according to this NSF data: http://ncsesdata.nsf.gov/datatables/gradpostdoc/2013/html/GSS2013_DST_39.html
1,188/3,850 = 0.31 (or is the above data not complete?)
ReplyDeleteAh, OK. To be clear, the NSF Survey of Graduate Students and Postdoctorates is an attempted census of all postdocs in academia, regardless of support.
DeleteYou can say the percentage of postdocs in US chemical academia with a international PhD is 31%. There is no data to indicate what percentage of NSF-supported chemistry postdocs in the US have international PhDs.
FYI: the faculty position at NE Illinois University is not for "an assistant professor of organic or inorganic chemistry". Their departmental website advertises for a polymer chemistry position, and that is what they have confirmed, after I inquired.
ReplyDeleteBTW, at the same time, I asked about their capacities in NMR and mass spec. The departmental website does not provide any info. No answer to my question on that topic was provided.