Italian 2010-2011


 * Galileo_facing_the_Roman_Inquisition.jpg

Your Current Position
ABD, but looking to defend this year: 8

VAP: 1

Adjunct: 3

PhD in hand, currently unemployed:2

PhD in hand, currently in non-TT job: 6

Currently in TT job:

Other:

Your Field
Medieval: 3

Renaissance: 2

17th:

18th:

19th:

20th: 9

Cinema: 3

SLA/Pedagogy (language and culture): 1

Linguistics and sociolinguistics: 1

Other? Define:

Your Language Background
Native speaker: 8

Non-native speaker: 7

Heritage speaker:

Franklin College, Lugano, Switzerland
Assistant Professor of Italian and Modern Languages

Full-time, continuing position in an extended contract system and beginning August 2011, pending funding.

Application deadline: November 10, 2010

-- The job post was cancelled from the JIL before the deadline. Does anybody have news about it?

_ They say they will contact potential candidate requesting additional material by Novembre 15th

--- Any news on this?

---only the strong sense that this is an inside job: see Laura Orsini, currently visiting prof.

UC Berkeley, Berkeley, CA
Tenure-Track position at Assistant Professor level, to begin July 1, 2011.

Application deadline: November 30, 2010.

Colby College, Waterville ME
Assistant Professor of Italian

Non tenure track, continuing

Application Deadline: November 26, 2010

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Dartmouth College , Hanover NH======

Language Program Director

Senior Lecturer, 5 year renewable

Application Deadline: October 20, 2010

- Anybody heard anything from them?

- Preliminary interview scheduled for this weekend at ACTFL convention

- Will they interview at the MLA as well?

- Yes, they'll interview at MLA.

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Dominican University , Illinois======

Assistant Professor of Italian

Tenure Track

--any news on this one?

Eastman School of Music, Rochester NY
Assistant Professor of Italian

Non tenure track

Application Deadline: October 31, 2010

--any news on this one?

- MLA interview scheduled by email (12/13) (x2)

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 Bucknell University , Lewisburg PA

Assistant Professor======

Tenure Track

Application Deadline: October 15, 2010

Emory University
Lecturer

Three year renewable

Application Deadline: November 30, 2010

Gettysburg College
Resident Teaching Fellowship

One semester, beginning January 2011. Possibility for one year renewal.

Application Deadline: November 1, 2010

Loyoloa University Maryland
Humanities Chair

Two semester appointment, 2011-2012

Application Deadline: November 30, 2010

Ohio Wesleyan University, Delaware OH
Assistant Professor of Humanities

Tenure track

Application Deadline: November 1, 2010

any news on this one?

San Diego State University, San Diego CA
Assistant Professor, European Studies

Tenure track

Application Deadline: October 25, 2010

Univ. of Southern California
Assistant Professor, Mediterranean Studies

Tenure track

Application Deadline: November 15, 2010

- MLA Interviews scheduled last week (see French 2010-2011).

University of Massachusetts Amherst
Assistant Professor

Tenure Track

--candidates will be contacted for MLA interviews in the first 10 days of December (via receipt of materials email, 11/12)

Colorado College, Colorado Springs CO
Assistant Professor

Tenure track

Application Deadline: December 1, 2010

Ack of received material via e-mail. They will contact finalists for interview in December (12/1)

Has anyone else not yet received email acknowledgement? - You might want to scroll back through your email. I thought I had not received acknowledgement either, then found that I was emailed as soon as I submitted, which was some time ago. -- Indeed - there it is! Thank you.

- interview scheduled by email (12/15)

Bard College, New York
Visiting Assistant Professor, Open

3 year appointment

Added to jil 11/19/2010

Application Deadline: December 13, 2010

SEARCH CANCELLED (email notification 12/21)

SUNY, Buffalo
Visiting Assistant Professor, Open

1 year appointment

Added to jil 11/19/2010

Immediate Review of materials

Is anyone else having trouble finding the post on UBJobs? (11/23/10)

-Still not functioning... they said they had a technical glitch that should be cleared soon (11/24/10)

- It is still impossible to find the posting... too strange at this point, as it is strange that the review begins immediately (11/26/10)

-It might be TG holidays, let's see what happens next week.

-UBJobs is now up and running (11/30)

-There are asking for a Cover Letter AND a Letter of Interest?? What does that mean?

I assumed it was a clerical mistake and uploaded the same letter twice.

University of Massachusetts, Boston
Assistant Professor, Open

Tenure Track

Application Deadline: November 22, 2010 (materials postmarked by this date)

-Search Committee is reviewing applications and will be in touch with selected candidates in early December.

-- Thanks for update. How were you informed (email or snail mail)? Email (12/1/10) (x2)

Tulane University, New Orleans LA
Visiting Assistant Professor, Open

One year appointment

Application Deadline: December 1, 2010

Vanderbilt U
Visiting Assistant Professor

One year appointment

Application Deadline:November 15, 2010

....Plus many more. Currently 26 positions on the mlajil. Not so bad for such a bad year.

--Wait. There are 8 tenure-track jobs specifically in Italian, which in reality means only 6 for modernists (no berkeley, no bucknell) or 3 for medievalists (no Berkeley, no U-Mass Amherst, no Denver, no John Carroll, no Dominican). Not to mention probably at least three of these 8 jobs already are probably destined for inside candidates (and you know where those are: those universities whose job ads expire a week after the posting date, those who already have visiting assistant professors with the identical sought specializations...). So much for a cornucopia. We are more like the poor Kafkian hunger artist.

- And what about a position that does not even have a deadline for submission? Just a distraction or a subliminal message?

Interviews Scheduled
Bucknell

Bucknell phone interview (scheduled 10/25) x2 ...this seems early, right? SC mentioned that they want to fill the position before the end of the semester. So yes, it is early and yes, they're moving extremely fast. Strange, any sense of the back story there? I think that Bucknell knows very well where it stands as far as likability -- so to speak. They know we are desperate to have a job, and they want candidates to sign a contract before they are contacted by other schools. They are just taking advantage of current miserable state of affairs.

--- They have an inside candidate.

-- The previous poster might have just solved the riddle. Why waiting if you already have your answer? Congrats to the insider, while we -- the remnants - brace for another painful year.

- They do? From what's on their website all I can tell is that they have two non-TT faculty members who don't fit the search criteria. Is there someone hiding in the wings?

--- One of them is teaching a course that matches exactly the only specific requirement they pointed out :(

-- This is true, but they have new program requirements based on the recently adopted Core Curriculum. They need some one who actually does Renaissance, can teach Dante, and does both of those things in English (and can teach a little Italian on the side). Their "inside candidate" isn't a Med/Ren person, so I doubt that they could hire her for the position given the parameters of the ad. The market is sad enough as it is, let's not start jumping at shadows.

---I hate to say it, but then why are they interviewing other modernists?

-- How do you know the other candidates are modernists? --I think it's safe to assume that the previous poster both had a phone interview and is a modernist.

- See below for latest. While just the luck of the draw, inside candidates seem particularly painful in such a dismal market. *sigh*

--I'm a modernist, and I had a phone interview with Bucknell on 10/26. I haven't heard anything from them since. Would it kill them to send a one-line email telling a candidate that he/she is no longer in the running!? Sheesh!

--Received an email stating that they had made their choice and that the candidate accepted the offer. Congratulations to the chosen person!

San Diego State University

- "Skype intervew scheduled (11/8 by phone)"... Found it on the Comp Lit. Wiki

-Any internal candidate here? Maybe a Russian one?

- For what it's worth, I heard from a faculty member in a literature department there that the search committee head (a Russian) would prefer a Russian.

Gettysburg College 

- Phone interviews scheduled (week 11/8)

Franklin College Switzerland

- Short-listed candidates contacted by email (11/24)

University of Denver 

- MLA Interviews scheduled by phone (11/24) (x2, 11/29)

- HUGE inside candidate! Gosh this is turning into Italy with its crappy academia...

--Thank you! I didn't want to seem too paranoid (two inside candidate jobs out of the 8 or sojobs out there? no!) but seriously...

- Being an inside candidate is not always an advantage. The committee knows the inside candidate's strengths but it is also very much aware of his/her weakness. And if they are looking for the best they can get... well, maybe that is why they are spending their money going to the MLA instead of doing Skype interviews...

-- That is a big IF. See last year Buffalo, Stony Brook, etc... I am not blaming them, however. It's just the way it is. And, no, it has little to nothing to do with crappy Italian system: try to be in a classroom where a very respected professor tells you, first day of the semester, that you should get the hell out of there and study something else if you want to have an academic career...

Dominican University

- MLA interview scheduled by email (x3, 12/2, 12/7)

University of Massachusetts, Boston 

- MLA interview scheduled by email (12/7) (x2 12/7) I was offered a choice of 14 time-slots at the MLA. I'm assuming this means that they don't have more than 14 candidates still in the running.

- You are assuming that you were the first candidate contacted, hence 14 interviewees. That's all.


 * I too was offered a choice of 14 time-slots (Thursday--2, 3, 4; Friday, 9:30, 10:30, 11:30, 2; Saturday, 9:30, 10:30, 11:30, 2, 3; Sunday, 2, 3). Are these the same you received in the email?
 * That's the email I received too. (12/13/10)

University of Massachusetts, Amherst

- MLA interview scheduled by email (12/8)

University of Southern California

-Just saw this on the French page, it's the same job: "USC - MLA interview scheduled by email & phone (12/10)"

Colorado College

Rejection email today (12/15). (x2 - at least they were prompt and kindly worded) (x3. I agree about the promptness. And it is not easy to write mass rejection letteres... but is it really necessary to say that you were impress with the dossier of ALL your applicants, included those who probably were not qualified?) - well it certainly doesn't hurt anyone!

MLA Interview scheduled by email (12/15).

Colby College

MLA Interview scheduled by email (12/8)

UC Berkeley

Rejection e-mail today (12/20)

Vanderbilt University

MLA Interview scheduled by email (12/15)

Tulane University

Telephone interview scheduled by email (1/5)

SUNY Buffalo

Telephone interview scheduled (1/10)

MLA experience
How did things go a the MLA? A total nightmare or just mildly traumatic?

- oh, somewhere in the middle. growing more traumatic as campus visit invitations begin to be noted...

- I second that... The MLA wasn't traumatic, this week of waiting and learning disappointing news has been...

- Same here and I am wondering... do people get back to your kind "Thank you notes"?

- Does everyone send thank you notes? I didn't. Do you send cards or emails? To everyone who interviewed you individually? Thank you for your advice...

-- I (not OP) send one thank you card to the committee and address the envelope to search chair et al. I don't think there's a right and wrong here - or that you shoot yourself in the foot by not sending a thank you. It's just a nice gesture, especially given that we'll continue to run into these folks at conferences, etc.

-- Thank you!

Campus Visits Scheduled
Can folks indicate if they are a (x2) for a campus visit? I'm curious how many people schools are inviting in this climate.

-- Any word on the U. Mass Boston or Amherst jobs?

U Mass Boston

Rejection email (1/26) x3

Bucknell

Colleague from former dept. has on-campus interview this week (11/15). Colleague in question is a Med/Ren specialist as the ad requested, but rumors of an inside candidate with Modern specialization are apparently true.

Franklin College

Finalists for on-campus interview selected (12/16)

-- Are there any finalists not based in Italy?

-- And it's only two finalists for campus interviews.

University of Denver 

Campus interview selected by phone (11/1)

--It should be a relief to know that the inside candidate here did not make the final cut. Three cheers for a more impartial search process!

Colorado College

on-campus interview scheduled by email (1/11)

Dominican University

Campus interview scheduled by email (1/10)

-- Campus interview scheduled by phone (1/8).

Eastman School of Music

Campus interview scheduled by phone (1/13) (x2)

Colby College

campus interview scheduled by email (1/14)

Emory University

Campus interview scheduled by email (1/14) x2

Berkeley

Campus visits scheduled. (x4)

University of Massachusetts, Amherst

Campus visit invitation via email (1/25)

- Internal candidate here?

SUNY Buffalo

Campus visit scheduled by phone (1/27)

Offers Extended/Accepted
Bucknell job offered to another candidate (perhaps the inside candidate?), notified by email.

How would you know this information? If you are the candidate who got the position, congratulations!

Eastman School of Music (University of Rochester) made an offer to a candidate, notified by phone. (2/9)

Dominican CANCELLED its search, citing lack of promised funding from state legislature. Would have been nice to have been notified earlier, especially since job talk was scheduled for next week. ++ How did you find out this information?

Word on the Street
- Any sense yet of who might be posting late positions (ie VAPS, etc.) in the coming months? --100 applicants to U-Mass Amherst job (from 6 countries); 90 to U of Denver job.

-- Associate candidates applied to assistant professor jobs this year. How strange.

If there were 128 applicants last year for the TT position at DePaul (won by a graduate of Harvard), certainly this year promises even more competition with so many newly-minted Phds out of work. It is, of course, impossible to predict the amount of jobs that will be available this year. But the ADFL's mid-year report from last year offers disheartening statistics.

- Bucknell now hiring for a VAP??? -- This most likely means that their inside candidate, who was a VAP at Bucknell, was given the tenure-track job, and now they need to hire another VAP to take her place.

The mid-year chart ("Number and percentage share of jobs advertised in the October MLA Job Information List") runs from 1997-2009.

The Italian numbers depict a clear and evident crisis.

1997: 22

1998: 20

1999: 25

2000: 24

2001: 29

2002: 30

2003: 18

2004: 18

2005: 12

2006: 19

2007: 20

2008: 24

2009: 4

Or, percentage-wise, from a high of 5.6% (2002, 2008) of foreign language JIL jobs to 2.0% (2009).

With renewed competition now from scholars in Italy and English-speaking countries (especially, of course, the UK),

it is becoming more and more difficult to find not merely a tenure-track job but even an adjunct position.