If we agree that jobs for ecologists are resource limited, and If we agree that resources are not increasing, then it follows that ecologists who wish to produce intellectual offspring (MS and PhD) should produce such offspring in a way that maximizes the probability that they will be represented in the next generation's career 'gene pool'.
If ecologists believe the current job market is competitive, they should reproduce like albatrosses, maximizing their investment in a very few highly competitive offspring with a wide array of attractive skills (K-slection). If they believe the current job market is essentially a crap shoot, then they should spawn like salmon, investing little or nothing, with subsequent massive mortality, and only a few offspring surviving (r-selection) The present situation seems to be more salmonid in an albatross environment with considerable human carnage. What can be done? Individuals can look into other fields but that means giving up a dream and acquiring more debt if they go back to school to retrain. If they stay, they risk remaining on the outside of academic/professional leks, opportunistically exploiting irregular and marginal rewards. They can teach, becoming contingent faculty, a growing national scandal where untenured faculty with precarious teaching positions may rely on food stamps to get by. If they have a large debt from student loans, they will end up taking just about any job that allows them to make their monthly repayments. The long term solution is a ZPG for ecologists: professors should essentially only reproduce themselves. Some may reply that they need 'excess' grad students as teaching assistants. In reality these positions could be filled and better taught by what are now contingent faculty. Make these better paid, give them a heavier load than one or two classes a semester and provide five-year contracts that would give them with more security. Faculty should not admit grad students unless they can be fully supported by fellowships. With fewer degrees each year, agencies might consider increasing the number of independent post docs that are long enough to be useful (5 years?) to allow people to develop. Funders should be prepared, if they fund projects with interns, to fund them at a living wage. Funding agencies should also support programs that support those in overcrowded fields who wish to retrain for teaching or health fields. We make a big point of wanting more people to enter the STEM fields, maybe we need to think more about how to retain them. David Duffy On Sun, Feb 9, 2014 at 10:57 AM, David L. McNeely <mcnee...@cox.net> wrote: > ---- Kevin Klein <kkl...@mail.ic.edu> wrote: > > I haven't been able to follow the entire thread but one thing I draw from > > what I have read is that it is incumbent on those of us who work with > > students at all stages in their academic careers to also advise them to > > consider the job market in their chosen disciplines. In so doing, they > > make more informed decision and they study with eyes open wide on the > > possibilities open to them at the next stage in their life and career > > journey. Much easier said than done. It reminds me of two PhD markets > in > > recent years. One, where hundreds of applicants vied for the reported 2 > or > > 3 job openings that year and second the hundreds of positions open for > the > > 2 or 3 PhD candidates graduating each year. Hopefully we advise our > > students of the job market realities. One place a student might look for > > this information can be found here. > > http://www.bls.gov/ooh/occupation-finder.htm > > > > > Hmmm.... . I was an academic biologist for 35+ years, after the time > spent preparing. I cannot recall a time when there were "hundreds of > positions open for 2 or 3 Ph.D. candidates graduating each year." I do > recall a good many times when the opposite was true. > > David McNeely > -- Pacific Cooperative Studies Unit Botany University of Hawaii 3190 Maile Way Honolulu Hawaii 96822 USA 1-808-956-8218
