The Professor Is In Quotes

“... the modern university system systematically requires an unending supply of young, vulnerable idealists to work for poverty wages as graduate student teaching assistants (and, of course, adjuncts). The advanced degree these students earn is, as Marc Bousquet has argued, simply a by-product of this systemic exploitation, and not meant to carry value forward as a basis for high-wage employment" (Kelsky).”
― Karen Kelsky, The Professor is In: The Essential Guide to Turning Your Ph.D. into a Job

“Academia was a system created by elite white men and for elite white men, and elite white men continue to dominate its ranks, particularly at the level of full professor and administrator. While I know and have worked with white men who struggle mightily with feeling intellectually unworthy, these types of struggles are magnified when the scholar deviates from the norm. Women, students of color, first-generation students, queer and older students…all of those coming from marginalized positions fight a mighty battle to claim a space at the academic table, and to find a voice in academic debates. They also often find themselves cut out of the academic prestige circles or relationships through which cultural capital, untaught knowledge, and opportunities flow. The elite (and white) old boys’ network is a real thing.”
― Karen Kelsky, The Professor Is In: The Essential Guide to Turning Your Ph.D. into a Job

“We thought we only wanted X, but having read this application, it seems important to expand our thinking to include Y.”
― Karen Kelsky, The Professor Is In: The Essential Guide to Turning Your Ph.D. into a Job

“Adjectives are not arguments.”
― Karen Kelsky, The Professor Is In: The Essential Guide To Turning Your Ph.D. Into a Job

“Because if you are fresh from the hazing of PhD training, you are: insecure, defensive, paranoid, beset by feelings of inadequacy, pretentious, self-involved, communicatively challenged, and fixated on minutiae.”
― Karen Kelsky, The Professor is In: The Essential Guide to Turning Your Ph.D. into a Job

“A Tightly Organized Research Program. You will articulate your dissertation project/current project in approximately five sentences that sketch the topic, its data, text or objects of study, its methods, its approach, and its core argument.”
― Karen Kelsky, The Professor Is In: The Essential Guide to Turning Your Ph.D. into a Job

“so be proactive in seeking information from many, always prioritizing those who have fresh-lived experience of the job market.”
― Karen Kelsky, The Professor Is In: The Essential Guide to Turning Your Ph.D. into a Job

“Search committees need to be easily able to imagine you as a faculty member in their departments. Invoking the names of other universities and colleges is an obstacle to that.”
― Karen Kelsky, The Professor Is In: The Essential Guide to Turning Your Ph.D. into a Job

“The majority of good jobs are advertised in late summer and fall,”
― Karen Kelsky, The Professor Is In: The Essential Guide to Turning Your Ph.D. into a Job

“From this story, I want you to take the message: Look at what moves you. And build a life around that. What moves you doesn’t have to be rage—you may be emotionally healthier than me (I hope you are)! But whatever it is, it emerges only when you dig down beneath the shame, the narrow judgments of value, and the debilitating sense of failure and loss, and begin to see the skills you have gained and the contributions you are poised to make. Not everything we throw at the wall sticks in the post-academic realm. But everything is meaningful.”
― Karen Kelsky, The Professor Is In: The Essential Guide to Turning Your Ph.D. into a Job

“Before moving on, I want to pause to point out that a lot of what search candidates call “illegal” questions may not technically be illegal. But they are absolutely inappropriate, and may well be ambiguous enough that they could lead to lawsuits alleging discrimination, and often do in hiring contexts that are more litigious than the academy. Not every grossly inappropriate and discomfiting question necessarily falls into the illegality. I am no lawyer and no expert, so beyond this I direct you to investigate further with human resources at your institution. In the meantime, master the art of redirection, as with toddlers.”
― Karen Kelsky, The Professor Is In: The Essential Guide to Turning Your Ph.D. into a Job