Thanks for raising this, Raul. It's a great question, one that has had some
play on other lists I've been on over the years, and is a regular topic of
discussion among members of the environmental studies community. I have kept an
eye on the field out of professional interest, in order to know how best to
advise my students interested in graduate study, and because many of my friends
are - like me - products of interdisciplinary PhD programs who have sought jobs
in interdisciplinary departments or programs. That being said, I write only
from personal experience and my participation in various professional and
personal discussions.
I've been on the job market twice in the last 10 years, and both times looked
_only_ at interdisciplinary positions in interdisciplinary programs for
prospective employment. For what it's worth, the places that I got interviews -
both research universities and liberal arts colleges - were interested in my
education, teaching and research experience, and future pedagogical and
scholarly interests, almost all of which are interdisciplinary. So, my attempt
to self-select places that appeared interdisciplinary (such as those we've been
sending to the list the past few days in response to Ken's query) seemed to
bear fruit. My degree is an amalgam of conservation biology and public
administration (though my research is social science) and I wouldn't have
dreamed of applying for positions in politics departments whose tenure criteria
(for example) were typical of that field - I don't think I'd have cut it,
despite having graduate degrees from a strong school and a good teaching and
publication record.
My sense of the job market is that for at least the time I've been out of
school there has always been a market for interdisciplinary folks (when the
economy allows hiring to occur normally), but fit is really critical. For
example, among the topics discussed at recent NEES meetings has been the
success of interdisciplinary junior faculty in disciplinary departments or
shared (i.e., joint) appointments. There's even some empirical research on this
now. The anecdotal findings seems to say pretty clearly that shared (joint)
positions and interdisciplinary positions in disciplinary departments often
don't work well because of a lack of understanding of what "interdisciplinary"
means, and how to handle it in a disciplinary setting. Similarly, search
committees that are not clear on what sort of position they are hiring don't
work very well. Similarly, institutions that lack a commonly accepted framework
for "interdisciplinary" can run into difficulty with interdisciplinary
appointments (e.g., when departments, promotion and tenure committees, and
administrators are forced to sort it out during some poor junior faculty
member's review). That all being said, I've been at two institutions as a
faculty member, two as a student, and am aware of several others where my
colleagues from graduate school are now employed, where the challenges are
addressed pragmatically, and successful hires (and tenure decisions) result. My
sense from the years of ongoing discussions (at NEES meetings and elsewhere) is
that this continues to be a growing trend toward greater acceptance of
interdisciplinary positions. Certainly there are more truly interdisciplinary
programs and departments now than ever before, many more than even a decade
ago. I'm very interested in others' senses of this, but I don't think that it
is all accountable to the desire of schools to ride the wave of environmental
pedagogical rhetoric (though undoubtedly there's some of that going on, too). I
think the trend is real, and so the number of opportunities will increase, even
if true acceptance of interdisciplinary positions, and departments, is still
the exception, and not the rule across all environmental fields.
Sorry for the looooong e-mail, but I think about this stuff a lot!
Cheers,
Rich
--
Richard L. Wallace
Associate Professor and Chair
Environmental Studies Program
Ursinus College
PO Box 1000
Collegeville, PA 19426
(610) 409-3730
(610) 409-3660 fax
rwall...@ursinus.edu
________________________________
From: owner-gep...@listserve1.allegheny.edu on behalf of Raul Pacheco
Sent: Mon 2/2/2009 4:00 PM
To: Kenneth Wilkening; Betsill,Michele; Mark Axelrod
Cc: gep-ed@listserve1.allegheny.edu
Subject: RE: Schools offering joint environmental science/policy degree -- Is
anyone compiling this? YES!
I would like to make a swift appearance on the GEP-ED list to ask a question
that is somewhat related to the discussion on schools offering joing
environmental science/policy programmes. How true is it that all those schools
offering an interdisciplinary degree actually value holders of
interdisciplinary PhDs?
I have the feeling (as the holder of one of such interdisciplinary PhDs) that
while many universities, schools and departments market themselves as valuing
and embracing interdisciplinarity, if it came down to it, most political
science departments would want to hire someone with a PhD in political science
(just giving an example of one of the myriad of disciplines in the social
sciences) instead of someone with an interdisciplinary degree, even if the
teaching and research agendas involved interdisciplinary work.
Thoughts?
Best wishes,
Raul
--
---------------------------------------------
Raul Pacheco-Vega
Institute for Resources, Environment and
Sustainability
The University of British Columbia
413.26-2202 Main Mall
Vancouver, British Columbia
Canada V6T 1Z4
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