Guten Morgen! In another recent thread (which I did not wish to derail), a poster mentioned a certain university curtailing the practice of hiring its own graduates as lecturers / professors. With this in mind, I am curious how common of a practice this is. I don't know if data is readily available, but perhaps our members here can at least comment what they have seen. Surely, we have all looked at countless faculty lists on universities' websites. Personally, when I have been looking at degree programs in South Africa, I noted that a number of the professors did at least one degree (if not multiple) at the same institute where they were hired on to lecture at. For example, look through the this page of staff members from the Department of Linguistics at Stellenbosch. Any thoughts? Messdiener P.S. On a side note, how do you guys feel about these professors having multiple degrees from the same university and not branching out to other institutions?
In modern America, the current academic practice is to not hire your own doctoral graduates as professors. In mediaeval Europe, an individual who completed doctoral studies was added to the faculty of their doctoral alma mater.
For me it depends on the university/college. If it is a small institution then I think that they should keep the number of their own graduates low. For larger schools, I feel that hiring some of your own graduates is good, but if most professors and instructors are from your institution it is not good. Part of having diversity is including many voices and that should include graduates of that institution.
I wonder how much of this theory is tied to the (somewhat outdated) rule that you shouldn't stay at the same school for undergrad and graduate work. That said, I did a quick check at Georgia State University, and they have ~195 out of ~1600 of their professors/lecturers with degrees from GSU. I think this is only for their PhD (or MA/MS/MFA), since they only list one school for the professors along with their highest degree attained. That's about 12% of their faculty with a GSU degree. For some reason that number seems about right to me, especially for such a large school. This is purely anecdotal of course, but thought I'd share some numbers. Most schools list their faculty in the course catalogs. I think it also depends on the program the teacher is in. I didn't specifically look, but I would bet that more specialized programs must be more cannibalistic with their alumni than others.
I've worked in academia for nearly ten years. Most schools don't hire their own doctoral alumni as faculty members, particularly schools in the more traditional sectors of American higher ed.
There's a name for this: Faculty inbreeding. There's also a belief that there's an advantage to having degrees, between bachelor's and doctorate, from at least two different institutions, that if you're a B.A., M.A., Ph.D. (Great State), you haven't been exposed to as broad a background as, say, B.A. (Great State), M.A., Ph.D. (Other Good State). (Basically what agschmidt refers to above, but I think splitting bachelor's and masters from one school and doctorate from another would overcome any concern in most rater's minds.) However: For one thing, this is a "mainstream," conventional wisdom, rule of thumb sort of thing. Own-graduate hiring may be especially common in theologically particular religious schools, programs in niche subjects, and B&M programs, or desk-tied jobs, in underserved communities. Also: If you're a university with doctoral programs, there's a very good chance you do hire some of your own graduate students and graduates routinely – as adjuncts. Belief in this "academic inbreeding" concept would be a very convenient way to keep some of your adjuncts' expectations of advancement low and keep them relatively satisfied with adjunct pay, wouldn't it now. aranoid: And: At many institutions or in many departments, all this is probably more a soft bias than a hard rule. Finally: I think there's a corollary where if a traditional school hires one of its own graduates, they're probably pretty AWESOME so as to have overcome the bias against own-school graduates. Evidence!: My beloved Mom earned her bachelor's, master's, and doctorate from the same school. One of the largest in Canada, public, research-intensive; in a field, sociology, not hard up for faculty. After some time adjuncting (and organizing her own research program on the side), they did hire her as a full-status tenure-track assistant professor, which she is today. My Mom is, also, awesome! So, there. :tongue: ETA: Oh, hey, there's a Wikipedia article. Intellectual inbreeding.
No, that would not be a bad thing. But all else being equal, something like BA (Yale), MA (Oxford), and PhD (Harvard) might be even better.
Especially if the person is trying to justify teaching at Harvard. AB, AM, PhD (Harvard) teaching at Harvard just seems odd.
It's like with any job. Suppose you are comparing two candidates for a great new position that your company has in California. Suppose that both candidates have long professional track records -- but one candidate has spent his entire career in the Boston office; the other has previously worked in your Connecticut, Chicago, and Baltimore offices. You might wonder if the Boston guy is going to adjust successfully to the new surroundings. You probably wouldn't have same concerns about the guy with the demonstrated history of geographic flexibility.
Here's the way I've thought about it (not to be confused with reality). If you've earned a PhD in History then you're unlikely to be hired by your alma mater because they've already got someone who specializes in your area (that would be your doctoral advisor). School are interested in filling holes in their staff. They don't just want a PhD in history, they want a PhD in anciaent Chinese history. If your dissertation was on British history of the 17th century then your resume is going straight to the circular file. It doesn't mean you're not talented, smart, capable, it just means that you're not the right person at that time. so, they don't need you, they already have (an approximation of) you. However, some other perfectly good school many be praying for a History instructor who knows 17th century England. And best of luck with all that.
Its like promoting from within at a company. Employees who start in the mail room and move up to the board room are probably terrible executives due to being moved up for tenure with the company instead of accomplishments. Employees that are with companies for a very long time have a narrow point of view and resist change. I find that I learn alot about the world and myself when I leave a job and start something new and challenging every few years.
