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For Music Theory and Composition jobs that begin in 2019.

Last year's page, for jobs that start in 2018: Music Theory/Composition 2017-18

Music Theory/Composition 2016–2017 (2 years ago)

Music Theory/Composition 2016-17 (3 years ago)

Music Theory/Composition 2015-16 (4 years ago)


See also: Musicology/Ethnomusicology 2018-19


RECENT ACTIVITY on the Music Theory/Composition Wiki[]

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Theory Only[]

Amherst College (deadline 12/15) Visiting Professor - open rank

Appalachian State (deadline 11/1) Assistant Professor of Music Theory

  • 11/9: Skype interview scheduled
  • 12/3: Campus interview scheduled
  • 2/26 Rejection email recieved (Job filled)
  • 2/28: Position Accepted, Robert Komaniecki (ABD Indiana University)

Arizona State University(deadline 5/7, open until filled) Instructor of Music Theory

  • 6/10: "No longer under consideration" email

Calvin College (open until filled) Assistant Professor of Music Theory and Musicianship

  • "Our ideal candidate is a generalist with broad musical expertise who can teach our theory and musicianship sequence, including keyboard harmony, as well one or more of the following areas (listed in order of need): music technology (teaching Sibelius and ProTools basics, maintaining our lab and composition studio), composition, piano, strings, and/or voice."
  • "Calvin College seeks faculty members who affirm the Christian faith as expressed by the Reformed confessions and who have academic and personal qualifications for teaching and scholarship."
  • 3/1 Rejection e-mail received, e-mail states 4 finalists have been chosen for on-campus interviews
  • (4/14) Any movement on this one?

Cleveland Institute of Music (deadline 4/26) Music Theory Faculty

  • "The successful candidate will teach in an intensive skills-related undergraduate curriculum, so candidates should be prepared to demonstrate excellence in keyboard harmony, sight singing, and aural skills."
  • (4/24) Request for Skype interview
  • (4/24b) Applications are still being accepted until 26 April
  • (5/30) Job offered and accepted (Jason Jedlicka, PhD Indiana 2018; Visiting Lecturer, Indiana University East)

The Colburn School (open until filled) Chair and Faculty Member - Music Theory

  • 2/21: Skype interview with Provost, Dean, and 4 faculty members
  • 3/5: Email "...we have decided to move forward with other candidates."
  • 8/19: After months of silence the website indicates that the internal candidate was selected.

Columbia University (deadline 11/26) Postdoctoral scholar - Presidential Scholars in Society and Neuroscience

  • "The goal of this interdisciplinary experiment is to train and foster a new generation of scholars with the capacity to advance understanding of the humanistic and social dimensions of mind, brain, and behavior." [N.B.: This position was posted on MTO jobs and is open to scholars with PhDs in music and an interest in interdisciplinary work in neuroscience.]

Columbia University (Review begins 12/15) - Lecturer in Discipline

  • "invites applications for a full-time, three-year (limited-term) appointment at the rank of Lecturer in Discipline beginning July 1, 2019. The primary duties of the successful candidate will be to teach courses in the core undergraduate Music Theory curriculum. The Department welcomes applications from candidates who are qualified to teach in the Western classical canon. Other teaching is possible in areas that may include popular music, jazz, film music, and/or non-Western music."
  • 1/29: Request for additional materials (x4)
  • 2/8: Video interviews scheduled for next week (x2)
  • 2/19: Campus interview scheduled
  • 4/12: rejection email from HR received
  • 4/8 Offer accepted: Marc Hannaford (ABD Columbia University)

Dartmouth College (Deadline 11/1) - Assistant Professor of Music

  • "Teaching responsibilities will focus on Western art music history and theory. We will prioritize candidates with the demonstrated ability to make music come alive in the undergraduate classroom through performance and/or creative pedagogies." [N.B.: This was sent to SMT-announce, hence I assume that a theorist would be an appropriate candidate]
  • Rejection notification sent (11/19) (x4)
  • I believe this went to Richard Beaudoin, internal candidate (8/16)

Florida State University (deadline 9/15) Assistant Professor - Music Theory (enter job code 44027)

  • 9/21: invitation for on-campus interview
  • 11/13: Position accepted, Gilad Rabinovitch (Ph.D. Eastman 2015, assistant prof. at Georgia State University)

Georgia State University (apply by 2/10/2019 to ensure consideration, open until filled) TT Assistant Professor in Music Theory

  • Converging evidence from SMT-announce vol. 120/10 suggests that the deadline has indeed been postponed to 2/10. I apologize for having introduced a bit of noise into the wiki's "system." A previous poster also mentioned a Chronicle posting. I think that submitting by 2/10 would be safe.
  • Any news on this one?
  • 4/19: Offer accepted, Xieyi (Abby) Zhang, CUNY

Grambling State University (deadline ?) Assistant Professor - Music Theory

Grand Valley State University (deadline 11/1) Visiting Assistant Professor - Music Theory

  • 11/26: request for additional materials
  • (4/14): Any movement on this one?
  • 4/18 Position filled (Anna Fulton, VAP at Hobart and William Smith, PhD Eastman)

Harvard University College Fellow in Music Theory

  • 2019-2020 fellowship, application due March 31, 2019
  • 4/3: request for additional materials
  • 4/10: request for Skype interview
  • 4/13: request for campus visit
  • Offer made and accepted (Joseph Jakubowski, PhD Washington University in St. Louis)

Indiana University - Bloomington (deadline 11/9) Visiting Assistant Professor/Post-Doctoral Resident Scholar

  • 11/30: Request for additional materials (x2)
  • 1/14: Request for Skype interview for week of 1/21 (x2)
  • 4/13: Offer accepted: Frederick Reece (Lecturer, University of Miami, PhD, Harvard)

Kent State (deadline 12/16) Assistant Professor - Music Theory

  • The deadline extended to January 11.
  • 2/14: request for Skype interview
  • 3/7:  Invitation for on-campus interview
  • 5/3: Offer made and accepted: Joshua Albrecht (Mary Hardin Baylor, PhD Ohio State)

Louisiana State University (deadline 10/1) Assistant Professor - Music Theory

  • 10/12 Request for additional materials (x3)
  • Skype interviews scheduled for week of 10/22 (X2)
  • 11/2 Campus interview scheduled
  • 12/10 offer accepted
    • do we know who?
    • Olivia Lucas, PhD Harvard 2016, Victoria University of Wellington

Michigan State University (review begins 11/16) Assistant Professor - Music Theory

  • 11/12: Reference contacted (Yes, before the review begins.) (x3)
  • 11/27: Request for additional materials (X3)
  • 12/11: Phone interview scheduled (X2)
  • 1/31:  Position filled per e-mail from HR (James Sullivan, Eastman PhD)

Millikin University  (deadline 10/15) Assistant Professor - Coordinator of Music Theory

  • "Primary responsibilities include: teaching and coordinating the music theory and aural skills curriculum; engaging in recruitment and retention initiatives; maintaining an active scholarly profile and current knowledge of trends in music theory pedagogy." 
  • Skype interview scheduled week of 10/29 (x2)
  • 11/5 On-campus interview scheduled
  • 12/7 Position filled per e-mail from HR (Steven Weimer, DM comp)

MIT (deadline 12/15) Lecturer I in Music

  • 1/24: Request for additional materials (x2)
  • 2/19: Request for campus visit
  • 5/13: Position filled (Nathan Lam, ABD Indiana University)
  • 5/22: Second offer made and accepted: Sarah Iker (Asst. Prof. University of Tampa, PhD University of Chicago 2017)

Mount Allison University (review begins 1/18/2019) Assistant Professor (or Lecturer) in Music Theory

  • 1/25: Request for additional materials
  • Offer made and accepted (Alan Dodson, Assoc. Prof. University of British Columbia)

NYU Steinhardt (best consideration by 5/10/19) Visiting Assistant Professor of Music Theory

  • 5/20: Skype interview held
  • 6/14: Any updates?

Portland State University (screening begins 1/11/19) Assistant Professor - Music Theory

  • Any action here?
  • 2/6: Emailed contact from job posting asking if there has been any movement or updates, her response: "The search committee is reviewing applications and should be notifying candidates of any status changes shortly." 
  • Noticed today (2/20) on the job portal site that the status of my application had been updated (at some point) to "No longer under consideration"
  • 3/8: I'm still "under consideration." Has anyone heard anything?
    • 3/27: Same still. No word but "under consideration"
  • 8/19: Still nothing.

Rutgers University  (deadline 10/15) Assistant Professor - Music Theory

  • 12/10: Has anyone heard anything about this? Rutgers has another search (Assistant Professor - Musicology or Ethnomusicology) that, according to the Musicology/Ethnomusicology jobs wiki, already reached Skype interviews (as of 11/28). 
  • 12/10: NB that other Rutgers search is at their Newark campus, not the New Brunswick campus which this advertisement is for.
  • 12/09: Skype interview scheduled

Shenandoah Conservatory (review begins 6/28) 2-year Teaching Fellowship in music theory and musicianship

Southwestern College (deadline 3/1) Assistant Professor of Music

  • primary teaching responsibilities will include but are not limited to: Music Theory and Aural Skills. Assignments may include a wide range of lecture/performance courses.
  • Additional desirable qualifications include strong keyboard performance and keyboard pedagogy skills.
  • The successful candidate will have a broad range of musical experiences in performance and Music Appreciation.

St Olaf College (deadline 3/15) Music Theory/Aural Skills Term Faculty 19/20

  • 4/22: Rejection email received

SUNY Purchase (deadline 4/19) Visiting Assistant Professor of Music Theory

Tarleton State University (deadline 2/18) Assistant Professor of Music Theory

  • " A review of applications will begin as they are received."
  • "A secondary field is also required, such as Music Education, Music Technology, Composition, Applied Music, or Musicology."
  • 2/19: Request for Skype interview (x2)
  • 2/26: References contacted
  • 3/19: request for campus visit

Texas A&M University Commerce (review begins 1/14) Assistant Professor of Music Theory

  • "A completed Doctoral degree in Music Theory or Composition is required for appointment as Assistant Professor."
  • 2/26 Any developments here?
  • 3/1 Request for phone interview
  • 3/19: references contacted
  • 3/22: invitation to campus (week of April 8)

Texas A&M University Kingsville (deadline ?) Adjunct in Music Theory/Ear-Training, Spring 2019 only

Texas A&M University-Kingsville (review begins 6/20) Lecturer in Music Theory/Music History

  • Phone interview scheduled for week of 7/1.
  • Offer accepted (Jay Smith, PhD UNT 2018)

University of Georgia (deadline 11/3) Assistant Professor - Music Theory

  • 11/16 Request for additional materials (x5)
  • 12/13 Request for Skype interview (x2)
  • 1/11 Request for campus visit (x2)
  • 1/24 Rejection email sent (for those who didn't get a campus visit)
  • Offer made and accepted
  • I could be wrong, but my understanding is that this went to the internal candidate, Dickie Lee (8/16)

University of Iowa (deadline 10/22) Assistant Professor - Music Theory

  • 12/4: Request for additional materials (x5)
  • 1/21: Request for Skype interview (x2)
  • 1/28: On-Campus interviews being scheduled
  • 3/22: Filled per email from search chair: Anabel Maler (PhD University of Chicago 2018; Visiting Assistant Professor Indiana University)

University of Louisville (open until filled, posted 7/17/19) Lecturer - Music Theory

  • Unclear if this is a 2019 or 2020 job, but Fall 2019 seems more likely

University of Miami  (deadline 5/09 or until filled) Full-Time Lecturer Music Theory/Musicology

  • Offer made and accepted: Matteo Magarotto (PhD, Musicology, University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music)

University of Missouri - Kansas City (deadline 11/26) Assistant/Associate Professor - Music Theory

  • 12/10 Request for additional materials
  • 1/18 Request to schedule Zoom interview
  • Offer made and accepted (Owen Belcher, PhD Eastman 2018; Lecturer University of Massachusetts Amherst)

University of Minnesota - Twin Cities (deadline 11/15) Assistant Professor - Music Theory

  • 12/3 Request for additional materials (x10)
  • 1/24 Request for video interview (x5)
  • 2/14 Request for on-campus interview
  • 3/14 Offer made and accepted: Alyssa Barna (ABD Eastman)

University of North Carolina - Greensboro (deadline 7/5/19) Music Theory Lecturer

Link for applications: https://spartantalent.uncg.edu/postings/14365 

University of North Texas (deadline 11/15) Assistant Professor - Music Theory - Post-1900 emphasis

  • 11/28 Skype interview scheduled (x3)
  • 12/18 On-campus interviews being scheduled
  • FILLED: Andrew Chung (ABD, Yale)

University of North Texas (deadline 11/15) Assistant Professor - Music Theory - Pre-1750 emphasis

  • 11/28 Skype interview scheduled (x2)
  • 2/25 In person interview
  • 4/3 Offer made and accepted: Justin Lavacek (PhD Indiana University

University of Notre Dame  (deadline 10/15) Assistant Professor - Music Theory

  • Any news on this one?
  • I think that it had progressed beyond the initial screening a while ago.
  • 2/18 Position filled per email from search chair.
  • 7/1 Johanna Frymoyer (Ph.D. Musicology, Princeton)

University of Richmond (deadline 4/12) Visiting Assistant Professor of Music Theory (Popular Music Focus)

  • 4/1 References contacted
  • 5/22 Position filled

University of Saskatchewan (deadline 8/1) Sessional Lecturer, MUS 234 (02)

  • "The Department of Music invites applications for a Sessional Lecturer to teach the following course during the 2018-2019 Winter session: MUS 234 (02) Fundamentals of Music Theory IV, January 3 to April 5, 2019

University of South Carolina (priority screening 12/1) Assistant Professor - Music Theory

  • 12/14 Request for additional materials (x5)
  • 1/15 Request for phone interview
  • 1/26 On-campus interview requested
  • 3/15 Offer made and accepted
  • 8/19: Rejection letter from HR.  ;)

University of Texas at Austin (deadline 11/30) Assistant Professor - Music Theory

  • 12/7 Request for additional materials (x5)
  • 1/11 Request for campus visit (X2)
  • 3/18 Offer made and accepted: Chelsea Burns, Asst Prof Eastman, PhD University of Chicago 2016

University of Wisconsin-Whitewater  (deadline 4/25) Lecturer of Music Theory and Aural Skills

  • "This is a one-year, .85 FTE position, with possibility for renewal. Responsibilities include: teaching first-year undergraduate courses in music theory and aural skills. Additional teaching assignments may be chosen from courses related to the successful candidate’s interests and background."
  • Note the change of deadline (now 4/25).
  • 4/30 request for phone interview (*2)
  • 5/15 Per email "Almost: we are in the final stages of our search—hoping to be able to make an announcement as early as next week."
  • 5/15 three finalists invited to interview
  • 5/23 position filled

Vassar College (posted 10/31) Adjunct Instructor - Music Theory (Spring 2019 only)

  • 12/8 On-campus interview requested
  • 12/18 Offer Made and Accepted

Vassar College (posted 7/17/19) - Adjunct Instructor (Fall 2019-Spring 2020)

  • Offer made and accepted

Virginia Tech (deadline 12/6) Collegiate Assistant Professor - Music Theory (3-year appointment, non-TT)

  • 1/15 request for phone interview
  • 2/26 Campus interview finished
  • 3/11 Offer made
  • 4/9 Position filled

Yale University (review begins 3/12, priority given to those who apply by 4/10) Assistant Professor Adjunct of Music Analysis and Musicianship

Wake Forest University (deadline 11/30) Assistant Professor - Music Theory

  • 1/9 They are still contacting references
  • 11/26 request for recommender letters by 12/21
  • 3/11 Position accepted, David Geary (ABD Indiana University, Visiting Instructor Oberlin Conservatory)

Wellesley College (deadline 10/19) Postdoctoral Fellow - Music Theory (start date 1/1/2019)

  • From the Search Committee: First round interviews will be scheduled for Friday 2 November at AMS/SMT. 
  • Position accepted: Maeve Sterbenz PhD 2017 Columbia University

Theory/Performance, etc.[]

Albright College (deadline 11/1) Assistant Professor of Music - Director of Applied Commercial Music

Albright College (deadline 11/1) Assistant Professor of Music - Director of Choral Activities 

Bemidji State University (deadline 12/4) Assistant/Associate Professor of Music Theory

  • "The candidate would be expected to teach in an applied area."
  • 1/25 Rejection email received

Borough of Manhattan Community College (deadline 1/4) Assistant/Associate/Full Professor of Music

  • "Primary responsibilities for music faculty include teaching courses in their area of expertise, music core curriculum courses and historical survey classes. Candidates for this position will coordinate the music core classes, and teach a variety of courses such as digital music, popular music, theory, jazz theory, aural skills, and music notation software."
  • 12/30 System reports that position is closed?
  • 3/7 Rejection e-mail received

Kutztown University (open until filled) Temporary Faculty Positions in Music

  • "Responsibilities could include teaching any of the following: large Jazz Ensemble, Rock Ensemble, Jazz/Commercial Arranging, Jazz Improvisation, Music Theory, Music Business, Songwriting, Audio Engineering."

Louisiana College (open until filled) Assistant Professor of Music Theory

  • "The qualified candidate will need to demonstrate exceptional musicianship, a strong piano skill set, quality leadership, and a Christ-centered educational mindset that permeates the duties the applicant will be responsible for. "
  • "The preferred candidate will have a strong piano background with the ability to teach private and group piano courses. Accompaniment skills will also be an important quality for the search committee to review."

Stephen F. Austin University, Nacadoches, TX (posted 8/1, review begins 8/5) Lecturer ("preferred" TheoryAural Skills/Double Bass) University of Arkansas at Little Rock (deadline 4/19) Assistant Professor of Percussion, Theory and Composition

University of Central Missouri (review begins 1/4) Assistant Professor of Music Theory and Music Technology

  • "Teach one or two music technology courses each semester in the University's cutting-edge music technology program."
  • 1/19 Request for additional materials
  • 2/15 Skype interview.
  • Campus interview scheduled for week of March 11th.

University of Mary Washington (Virginia) (deadline 11/15) Assistant Professor - Music Theory / Director of Keyboard Studies

  • Position number F00165
  • 3/5 Offer accepted per call from search chair
    • Offer Accepted (Robert Wells, Ph.D. Eastman 2015, VAP University of Mary Washington)

University of Nebraska – Lincoln (deadline 1/16) Assistant Professor of Bassoon/Theory

  • "…teach undergraduate music theory and aural skills."
  • Besides creative activity involving bassoon performance, the candidate "may also establish and maintain a program of scholarly productivity in the field of music theory."

Rider University (deadline 1/2) Assistant Professor (Popular Music)

  • " The successful candidate will hold a doctoral degree (PhD or DMA) in music or a related field with a primary focus on popular music studies.
  • 2/14: Request for on-campus interview
  • 5/20: Search failed

Southwestern College Instructor of Music: Collaborative Pianist and Instructor of Music Theory/Aural Skills

  • "position performs collaborative pianist duties and teaches a variety of courses which will include the theory sequence, aural skills and sight singing, and arts general education"

Xavier University (review begins 1/7) Assistant Professor of Music Theory

  • Responsibilities include a full-time teaching load and departmental service including an Applied Instrument studio, teaching pedagogical classes in primary area, and teaching all lower and upper level theory courses.

Theory/Composition, etc.[]

Appalachian State University (deadline ) Lecturer of Composition and Theory

  • 1/25 Additional materials requested 
  • 2/26 Skype interviews
  • Any movement since video interviews?
  • 4/2 Any movement since video interviews back in Feb.?
  • 5/6 Position filled
  • Offer made and accepted (Nicholas Cline, DMA Northwestern)

Arizona State University (deadline 12/15) Assistant/Associate Professor in Music Composition (two vacancies)

  • "…provide excellent teaching to the composition and theory areas."
  • (1/15) Skype interview scheduled for week of 1/21
    • Any word on whether the interview is for the Assistant or Associate position (or both)?
    • Not sure- wording on the email seems like it's both. (Thanks for response!)
  • 2/9 Campus Interview Scheduled
  • 3/18 Offers made and accepted (Alex Temple, DMA Northwestern and Gabriel Bolanos, PhD UC Davis)

Ball State University (deadline 7/4) Assistant Lecturer/Assistant Teaching Professor of Music Theory and Composition (one-year appointment)

  • 8/8 rejection received

Colby College (review begins 1/15, deadline 1/31) Faculty Fellow in Music Theory/Composition

  • 2/20 Zoom Interview
  • 3/13 Offer made and accepted (Ryan Maguire, PhD University of Viriginia 2018)

College of Wooster (priority given to those who apply by 3/15, open until filled) Visiting Assistant Professor (Music Composition & Theory)

  • 3/28 Skype interview
  • 4/22 On campus interview

Crane School of Music at SUNY Potsdam (review begins 10/15) Assistant Professor - Music Theory and Composition

  • Additional materials requested (x2)
  • Skype Interviews held the week of 11/5 - 11/8 (x2)
  • 12/7 E-mail notification that the position has been filled. "The hiring department selected a candidate whose qualifications appear to most closely match the requirements of the position." (x2)
  • 5/8 Position filled (Ivette Herryman Rodriguez, DMA Michigan State University; Asst. Prof. Western Illinois University)

Depaul University (open until filled) Assistant Professor - Composition and Musicianship

  • (11/13) This listing had been up for a while... surprised that there hasn't been any motion yet, at least here.
  • (12/10) Here either. Anyone heard anything?
  • (12/27) Re-listed on Indeed.com.
  • (1/12) Skype interview scheduled for week of 1/14
  • (3/17) Has there been any news on this DePaul position? 
  • (3/17) I had a Skype interview and had not heard anything since. This week I wrote to a member of the search committee who told me they have moved forward with other candidates.
  • (4/11) Offer made and accepted (Osnat Netzer, DMA NEC 2011; Preceptor in Music Harvard)

Dublin City University (deadline 4/10) Assistant Professor of Music

  • "Undergraduate and postgraduate teaching in Music, including introductory and advanced modules on Harmony and Counterpoint, Orchestration, Musicology, Composition, Theory and Applied Techniques, and Music Technology."

Fullerton College (deadline 11/5) Music Theory/Composition Instructor (part-time)

George Fox University (open until filled) Adjunct Professor of Music (Spring 2019)

Georgetown University (deadline 10/15) Assistant Professor - Music Theory and Composition

  • On campus interviews scheduled (11/2)
  • 1/9 Position filled per rejection email (x2)
  • 8/22 Position filled (Carlos Simon, DMA Univ. of Michigan 2017; Lecturer at Spelman College)

Maricopa County Community College District (open until filled) Music: Theory/Composition (Adjunct)

Murray State University (deadline 4/12) Assistant Professor

  • 4/17 Request for Zoom interview
  • On campus interviews scheduled (week of 5/12)
  • 6/3 Offer made and accepted (Ash Stemke, DM Florida State 2019)

New York University (review begins 12/10) Assistant Professor

  • "The Department of Music at New York University invites applications for a scholar of music studies at the assistant level. ... We encourage work that crosses and connects the department’s three subfields - composition, ethnomusicology, and musicology - and reaches out to other fields and modes of inquiry."
  • 1/17 Request for additional materials

North Orange County Community College (posted 12/27, open until filled) Music Theory and Composition Instructor

  • "NOCCCD will not sponsor any visa applications."
  • 4/30 Rejection email recieved 

Reed College (deadline 1/8) Two-Year Visiting Position in Music Composition/Theory

  • 1/25 Additional materials requested (x4)
  • 2/25 Preliminary interview invitation
  • 3/28 Offer made and accepted (Kirsten Volness, DMA UMich 2008

Reinhardt University (review begins 3/20) Assistant Professor of Music (Theory & Composition)

  • 4/4 Email from jobs@reinhardt.edu: "The search for the position of Assistant Professor of Music (Theory) at Reinhardt University has been cancelled. Thank you for your interest in the position, and best wishes as you pursue another position." -Human Resources

Sewanee: The University of the South (review begins 1/4) Assistant or Associate Professor of Composition/Music Theory

  • "She or he will possess professional-level ability on an orchestral or jazz instrument, will develop a studio on that instrument, and will contribute as appropriate to applied instruction and a University ensemble."
  • 2/19 Skype interview.
  • 4/8 On-campus interview, decision made "in a few weeks"

Soochow University School of Music (near Shanghai)(2 vacancies, program leader and faculty member)

Texas Christian University (deadline 12/20) TCU Chancellor's Postdoctoral Fellowship

  • The status of my application was changed to "not selected" on 2/16

Truman State University (review begins 4/4) Assistant Professor of Music (Theory & Composition)

  • 5/6 Position filled.

Union College (deadline 12/15) Assistant Professor - Music Theory and Composition

  • "Teaching courses in theory and composition is the primary responsibility of this position. ... The successful candidate will also demonstrate expertise in Digital Audio Arts, offering classes and supervising projects using digital media to create, record, and process sound."
  • 1/14 Phone interview requested (x3)
  • 1/29 Movement here since phone interviews?
  • 2/19 Anything? 
  • Offer made and accepted (Christopher Chandler, VAP University of Richmond, PhD Eastman)

Union University (posted 2/6) Faculty Position in Composition, Music Theory, Arranging, and Technology

  • "Successful candidates must be professing Christians who are active members of a local church."

University of Kentucky (Lexington) (deadline 11/15) Assistant Professor - Music Theory and Composition

  • "We are currently reviewing applications as they are received." (10/23)
  • 1/12 Skype interview scheduled
  • 1/29 Campus interview scheduled
  • 2/20 Rejection e-mail received
  • 3/28 Filled per email from committee
  • 4/3 Anybody know who got the job?

University of Nevada, Las Vegas (review begins 6/1) Assistant Professor-In-Residence

  • "The successful candidate will teach undergraduate and graduate composition lessons, courses in music composition, theory, and orchestration, other courses appropriate to the candidate's fields of expertise and School needs, and will have a leading role in the direction of the School's contemporary music ensemble."

University of Northern Iowa (deadline 11/2) Assistant Professor - Music Composition and Theory

  • Required Doctoral degree in composition with 18+ hours graduate study in theory
  • 12/3 Additional materials requested
  • 1/10 Phone interview request
  • 5/1 Rejection email received

University of Southern California (Posted 4/30, "Review of applications will begin as soon as May 1, 2019 and the position will remain open until filled.") Part-Time Lecturer, Music Theory and Composition

  • University of Southern California’s Thornton School of Music invites applications for two anticipated openings as Part-Time Lecturer in Music Theory and Composition for the 2019-20 academic year.
  • 8/3 Any update?

University of Utah (deadline 1/7) Assistant Professor - Music Composition and Theory

  • 01/17 Request for additional materials (x2)
  • 2/1 Skype interviews scheduled
  • 3/18 Campus visits 

University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (deadline 4/7) Assistant Professor of Composition and Theory

  • 4/26 Rejection e-mail received

Wheaton College (posted 12/26, review begins immediately, open until filled) Assistant or Associate Professor of Music Theory and Composition

  • "Desired qualifications include a commitment to the liberal arts, demonstrated Christian discipleship and spiritual maturity."
  • 2/10 E-mail update: "The search committee has received your preliminary materials, and is proceeding to careful consideration of the large number of candidates.  As our search proceeds, I will keep you posted on our progress."
  • 3/10 E-Mail update: "The search committee has received your preliminary materials, and is proceeding to careful consideration of the large number of candidates.  As our search proceeds, I will keep you posted on our progress."
  • 5/10 Position filled (Xavier Beteta, PhD UC San Diego)

Wichita State University (deadline 12/9) Assistant Professor of Music Theory and Composition

  • Teach undergraduate and graduate courses in Music Theory, Aural Skills, Music Technology, and Composition; advise and recruit undergraduate and graduate music majors.
  • Doctoral degree in Music Theory, Composition, or closely related field.
  • 2/4 Rejection email received (x4)
  • 3/21 Offer made and accepted - (David MacDonald, VAP Wichita State, DMA Michigan State University)

Composition Only[]

Berklee College of Music (deadline 10/15) Full-time Faculty, Composition Department.

  • On-campus interviews scheduled (11/16)
  • Offer made and accepted (Katherine Young, DMA Northwestern 2017)

Chinese University of Hong Kong (closes 2/8) Assistant Professor of Composition

  • Finalists are invited to campus interview (3/20)
  • Inside search.  No other candidates considered.
  • Kai Young Chan (Lecturer CUHK, PhD Penn 2016)

Emory University, Emory College of Arts and Sciences (deadline 10/19) Assistant/Associate Professor in Composition, tenure track

  • Request for additional materials (11/7)
  • Campus interview scheduled (12/10)
  • Offer Made and Accepted (Adam Mirza, VAP Emory University, PhD New York University 2017)

Florida State University (review begins 10/15) Assistant Professor in Music Composition (job code: 44174)

  • On-campus interviews scheduled (11/8)
  • Position filled 12/17 (Liliya Ugay, DMA Yale)

Indiana University (priority given to those who apply by 5/17) Associate Professor of Music (Composition)

  • "Composer with an international reputation, including significant performances and recognition."
  • 6/26 Rejection email (no info on who was hired)

Penn State University (deadline 11/20) Assistant Professor of Music Composition

  • "The successful candidate will have significant experience with software composition tools such as MIDI, virtual instruments, sound synthesis, and DAW software."
  • 12/07 Skype interview request
  • 1/12 On-campus interview scheduled
  • 3/26 Offer Accepted (Baljinder Sekhon, PhD Eastman, Assistant Prof, USF)

Queen's University Belfast (deadline 10/24) Lecturer in Composition (equal to 1-year VAP)

  • 10/22 Request for additional materials
  • 11/16 Rejection notification sent

Rennselaer Polytechnic Institute (review begins 12/1)

  • 2/5 Any updates?
  • 2/26 Any word on this?
  • 2/26 Campus visits 
  • 5/15 Offer Accepted (Matthew Goodheart, PhD UC Berkeley, Lecturer, RPI)

University of Arizona (review begins 1/14) Assistant Professor of Music - Composition

  • 2/12 Shortlisted candidates begin making on-campus presentations for final round.
  • Offer Accepted (Kay He, VAP U of Arizona, DMA UT Austin)

University of California, Santa Barbara (deadline 12/13) Associate/Full Professor of Composition

  • Nominations and applications of composers of international stature for the Corwin Endowed Chair of Music Composition.
  • Skype interviews w/semi-finalists, 2/3 & 2/10. Three finalists to be chosen week of 2/11.
  • Finalists chosen, campus visits conducted 2/25 - 3/15.
  • 5/25 any updates?

University of California, Santa Barbara (review begins 2/25, closes 6/30) Lecturer with Potential Security of Employment in Music Composition

  • 3/25 Skype interview request
  • 5/25 Are there any updates on this position?
  • 8/20 Offer Accepted (Sarah Gibson, Lecturer USC, DMA USC)

University of Chicago (deadline 11/1) 2019-2020 Chicago Center for Contemporary Composition Postdoctoral Researcher  (one-year non-renewable post-doc)

  • 2/26 Rejection e-mail received
  • 4/10 Offer accepted/announced (Ashkan Behzadi, Columbia University ABD)

University of Chicago (deadline 6/22): Lecturer in Electronic Music (two courses, Autumn 2019)

[https://unchili.webitrent.com/unchili_web/wrd/run/ETREC107GF.open?VACANCY_ID%3d90358843cC�USESSION=21AFBD76FB1A11E8B9FFF3169004F9E6&WVID=4211941WJu&LANG=USA University of Chichester] (deadline 1/2) Composition Tutor

  • 3/19 E-mail states the position has been filled.

University of Denver (open until filled, full consideration until 6/10)

  • Nine-month position, job #492453, ABD considered, expertise in electro-acoustic music preferred. Submission documents include CV, letter of application, list of three references, and one-page statement about experience with and commitment to inclusive excellence.
  • 6/15 Skype interview request

University of Florida (deadline 11/15) Assistant Professor in Composition

  • 11/30 Skype interview request
  • 12/11 On-campus interview scheduled
  • 2/5 Rejection received (x2)
  • 2/19 Offer Accepted (Scott Lee, PhD Duke University 2018)

University of Hartford (deadline 4/2) Assistant or Associate Professor in Composition

  • "Successful candidates will demonstrate the following: Fluency with 21st c. compositional concert music practices, and whose areas of expertise include at least 2 of the following: Electro-acoustic music & interactive arts, collaborative projects, multimedia/gaming/sound design, sound art and related sonic installation practices, improvisation and open form experimental composition, familiarity with multiple creative traditions & practices including popular/commercial musics, arranging, and songwriting. Demonstrated eagerness to research, invent and teach new avenues of compositional expression in this time of genre plurality is highly desirable."
  • 4/2 References Contacted
  • 5/3 Update?
  • 5/18 Rejection email
    • 5/19: Was rejection email from skype interview, or from campus visit?
    • 5/20: It was just for the application itself (I was not contacted for any type of interview).
  • 6/21 Position filled (Gilda Lyons, PhD Stony Brook, VAP University of Hartford)

University of Limerick (deadline 2/22) Lecturer below the bar in Music Composition

  • Open link above and type in 030628 to see posting.
  • 4/2 Rejection e-mail received.

University of Miami (review begins immediately, posted 17 July 2019) Part-Time Lecturer - Music Theory & Composition

University of Missouri-Kansas City (deadline 11/26) Assistant or Associate Professor of Composition

  • 3/11 Conducting on-campus interviews with finalists.
  • 4/11 Position filled. (Yotam Haber, DMA Cornell, Asst. Prof. at Univ. of New Orleans. Hired as Assoc. Prof.)

University of South Florida (deadline 7/3) Visiting Instructor 1 - Composition and Electronic Music

  • "The School of Music is looking for a motivated, creative professional who is committed to excellence in teaching, has a creative/research portfolio showing a demonstrated potential for prominence as a composer, and will share in administrative responsibilities of the USF Composition Program. The successful candidate will have a willingness to work collaboratively with other faculty in the School of Music and the College of The Arts, as well as with community groups and members. Job duties include: maintain an active studio of both graduate and undergraduate composers who receive private and/or classroom instruction; teach courses in composition, electronic music composition, and related business practices. The successful candidate will have significant experience with software tools such as MIDI, sound synthesis, DAW software, and interactive programming environments such as MAX, Pure Data, and/or Supercollider."
  • 7/13 Video interview request

University of Southern California (review begins December 2018) Assistant Professor of Composition

  • 12/8 Additional materials requested (x4)
  • 1/25 On-campus interview request
  • 5/14 Offer Accepted (Nina C. Young, Asst. Prof. UT Austin, DMA Columbia University)

University of York (deadline 3/13) Lecturer in Music Composition

  • 0.5FTE on an open contract basis.
  • Desirable (but not essential): specialism in composition for film, theatre, media, games or other narrative forms.
  • Only people eligible to work in the UK may apply; the University [will not] apply for a Tier 2 Certificate of Sponsorship.

Composition/Music Technology[]

American University,Washington, DC (open until filled) Term Faculty Position in Audio Technology

  •  The Department of Performing Arts in the College of Arts and Sciences at American University invites applications for a term faculty appointment in Audio Technology for Academic Year 2019-2020. Rank will be dependent on experience and stature in the field. The appointment is a 9-month term position and will commence on September 1, 2019. This is primarily a teaching position so demonstrated experience and excellence in teaching is expected. 

Australian National University (deadline 9/30) Lecturer in Multimedia Composition/Music Technology

Brandeis University (no deadline listed, posted 7/9) Lecturer in Music, 527517

  • "The Brandeis University Department of Music seeks to hire an instructor to teach Mus162b: Seminar in MAX/MSP in Spring 2019. We seek an excellent teacher specializing in music technology, electronic music, and music composition, who meets departmental needs by offering undergraduate and graduate courses that range both chronologically and methodologically."

Cabrillo College (deadline 2/20) Music Technology & Recording Arts Instructor École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne: 3 postdocs at the Digital and Cognitive Musicology Lab (Deadline: 15 January 2019)

Eastern Washington University (8/12) Lecturer of Music Technology and Audio Engineering

Fresno City College (deadline 10/20) Commercial Music Instructor - Full Time, Tenure Track

George Washington University (review begins 3/8) Assistant Professor, Computer Music & Multimedia Composition

  • "The Program welcomes candidates who are committed to research that crosses traditional boundaries (...); collaborative partnerships (...); interdisciplinary approaches to teaching, and to building community inside and outside the academy; the intersection of musical genres and practices; related topics, such as sound design, music production, interactivity, diversity of practice."
  • (3/29) Phone Interviews Scheduled
  • Offer made and accepted

Georgia Tech (deadline 11/1) Assistant Professor - Music Technology

  • Rejection email 12/5 (X3 on 12/17)

Hamilton College (deadline 10/15) Assistant Professor

  • Skype interviews scheduled beginning 10/25 (x2)
  • 11/7 On-campus interview scheduled
  • 12/12 Position has been filled (anyone knows who?)
  • Offer made and accepted (Ryan Carter, VAP Hamilton College, PhD 2014 New York University)

Indiana University Bloomington (deadline 12/1) Assistant or Associate Professor of Music (Composition: Electronic and Computer Music)

  • (11/24) Rec. letters requested
  • (12/10) Additional materials requested (x2)
  • 2/7 Campus interview scheduled
  • (4/13) Filled: Chi Wang (Instructor/DMA, University of Oregon)

McGill University (SIMSSA Project) (adjudication begins 02/04) Postdoctoral Researcher in Music Information Retrieval: The Single Interface for Music Score Searching and Analysis (SIMSSA) project at McGill University is hiring a new Postdoctoral Researcher in Music Information Retrieval. SIMSSA is a seven-year research partnership grant funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, headed by Ichiro Fujinaga, Principal Investigator and Julie Cumming, Co-investigator. The goal of this project is to make digital images of musical notation searchable and analyzable.

New York University (deadline 10/14) Assistant Professor - Music and Psychology, Tenure Track

  • Rejection email (x3)

Northeastern University (deadline 10/19) Assistant/Associate/Full Professor – Music Technology

  • 11/1 Skype interviews scheduled (not 10/30) (x2)
  • 11/21 On Campus Interview scheduled (from Musicology List)
  • 11/26 This is a different search than the one listed on the Musicology List. The difference was noted on that list several weeks ago. 
  • 01/04 Rejection email for *this* (music technology) search
  • 01/04 - Rejection email. Offer made/position accepted by another candidate.

Royal Holloway, University of London (deadline 7/18) Lecturer in Music (Digital Composition)

San Diego State University (review begins 9/12) Assistant Professor: Sound Design and Digital Composition

  • 12/1 Rejection email (x2)

The School of the Art Institute of Chicago in Illinois (deadline 11/15) Full-Time Faculty - Art & Technology Studies, Tenure Track

Spelman College (deadline 12/1) Senior Lecturer - Music Technology and Composition, Non-Tenure Track

  • (11/17) Has this been closed? Link is dead and position does not appear in search.

SUNY Oneonta (posted 11/27) Assistant Professor - Composition and Audio Production

  • Emphasis on media scoring (film, video game, etc.)
  • (1/30) Phone interview requested
  • (2/2) "Sorry, this job posting has expired." Is this position filled or did they cancel the search? 

Taylor University (posted 12/20, open until filled) Tenure-Track Position in Theory, Composition & Commercial Music

  • "Successful candidate will teach courses in the electronic music and audio production sequence and build a growing relationship with the TU Film and Media Studies area."
  • "Applicants must confess a personal commitment to Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord."
  • (3/8) Position removed from school's job postings website. No rejection yet.

Texas Tech University (open until filled) Assistant Professor of Media Music

University of Alabama (review begins 2/4) Assistant Professor of Music Composition

  • "The successful candidate will have (...) professional experience in audio production, audio postproduction, audio for video post-production, and media scoring; expert-level knowledge of Max/MSP, Pure Data, Supercollider, etc.; and a background in music performance."
  • This position seems only to have been listed on Music Theory Online, 8 days after the deadline. The last hire that they made was from the inside, and was announcing that he had been offered the position on social media at least two months before the other candidates were notified that they did not get the job. I wonder if this might be a similar situation.

University of California, San Diego (deadline 10/15) Lecturer with Potential Security of Employment (LPSOE) in Electronic Music

  • (11/3) Any movement?
  • (1/17) Still haven't heard anything.
  • (7/21) Position offered and accepted: King James Britt

University of Indianapolis  Assistant Professor/Director of Music Technology and Audio Recording Programs

  • Reposted 1/27
  • Reposted 2/27

University of Texas, Austin (deadline 02/28) Open Rank Faculty (TT or NTT) in Audio Technology / Computer Music

  • (1/17) Radio silence.
  • (2/18) This is an internal hire. Position start date delayed to 2020. One of own internal doctoral candidates won't finish in time to take the position this year, hence the position delay.

University of Utah (deadline 1/7) Assistant Professor - Electroacoustic Composition and Music Theory

  • (11/14) Rec. letters requested
  • (1/18) Request for additional materials (x2)
  • (2/4) Request for Skype Interview
  • (2/23) Request for campus interview
  • (2/25) Is there any update on the other composition search at this school? 
  • (03/08) Application Status Changed to "Under Review by Department/Committee" - likely still active
  • (04/25) Position filled (Elisabet Curbelo, Ph.D. University of California San Diego 2018)

Note: It is known that these two positions are not going to internal candidates. The person teaching electronic music is leaving likely and the other person who is a full-time lecturer is also leaving. So it looks like these two positions will be going to external candidates. 

Virginia Commonwealth University (deadline 1/11) Assistant/Associate Professor of Composition and Sound Design for Cinema, Games, and Motion Media

General Discussion[]

2018-2019 wiki[]

  • DISCRIMINATION IN PLAIN SIGHT: I was recently denied a theory job because of my gender. After I was informed that I did not receive the position, the chair of the committee confirmed to me that, although I was the best-qualified candicate, my gender was the primary reason that the job went to someone else. Can someone please explain how this is still happening in 2019? Isn't this what years of work by activists have won for American society? How could they possibly be so openly discriminatory? I'm still in shock. Oh, by the way, I'm MALE. The chair said there are too many men in the theory department, and thus the job went to a woman. Tell me how this is ok. But remember that, in America, our judicial system does not subscribe to the concept of group justice (thank God). That is, a person cannot be charged with a crime for belonging to a particular identity group. So how do you rationalize discriminating against men, even if you accept that women were historically more disadvantaged than men, and wish to rid our society of all sexism? The group (all men) cannot be held responsible for the actions of other group members. This is Equality of Outcome (what Heather MacDonald aptly calls the "diversity dilusion "). Equality of Outcome is identity politics, pure and simple. A better kind of equality is Equality of Opportunity (the absence of discrimination). The only reason people deny this is that they believe meritocracy is some sort of trick. Wake up, our profession is descending into tribalim. For proof, look no further than the mission statement of Project Spectrum , where asymmetrical gender distribution is the ONLY STATED EVIDENCE of discrimination. Oh right, there are also "quotidian" interactions in music departments (i.e. microaggressions, which are of course evidence of unconscious bias). How is it even possible to suggest discrimination based on AMS/SMT membership when has never been a single case of someone's entry into the society being denied based on their race, sex, sexual orientation, etc.? Oh right, QUOTAS. Different groups cannot ever make different choices. And this is far from the only evidence of identitarian ideology infecting AMS/SMT. Just consider the CFP from the SMT Interest Group "Scholars for Social Responsibility." Apparently "social responsibility" now entails imposition of quotas on every aspect of our society. If you don't know how dangerous this is, please look at the work of Jonathan Haidt, for instance, in this video . Lest you think I be uninformed of the arguments to the contrary, I have read Robin DiAngelo's White Privilege. Most frightening was her belief that INDIVIDUALISM = NARCISIM. Sorry, but the obvious conclusion of intersectionalism is the individual, since when you account for enough identity groups (hypothetically there are an infinite number), eventually each person is unique. Case in point: I'm gay, brown, the first in my family to attend college, son to a single-mother, lover of Star Trek, and I hate zucchini. Find me another person just like me and I'll change my mind. But apparently all that matters to some people is my sex. Whatever happened to competence being the deciding factor in job hiring? Oh right, meritocracy is a trick to keep people like me down. Thank God we've moved on to quotas to right history's wrongs. Btw, if you are wondering why I'm discussing these issues anonymously, its because I'M TERRIFIED of what would happen to me if the oh-so-accepting diversity police found out I've got nonconforming views. We all know what happened to James Damore for speaking out on these issues. For the record: "PARITY" INITIATIVES = EQUALITY OF OUTCOME = DISCRIMINATION IN PLAIN SIGHT.
    • 7/9: I think it's really important for this person to be heard, and I agree that the job landscape for many  men in the field is bleak right now. However, and this is a big however, the amount of entitlement, unseen privilege, and, frankly, misogyny expressed in this post is truly astounding.

      1) You are not owed a job. Just because you have credentials and completed something, and just because someone said you were the best qualified doesn't actually mean you were -- have you heard of white lies? They exist to help people/communities/organizations save face.

      2) By the sound of this post, it is quite possible that your temperment lost you the job. Perhaps your abrasive, entitled attitude lost you points with the committee. A hiring committee for a similar position who was considering a black man for a theory position did not end up giving the job to him BECAUSE HE WAS SO OBVIOUSLY ENTITLED. When he didn't get the job, he threw a similar hissy fit, and we knew we had made the right choice.

      3) People with power (ie. white men) cannot be discrimiated against. You are a person of privilege and power, and discrimination and oppression happens across a power imbalance, where someone in a position of privilege/power uses that power to hold down someone else with less power IN ORDER TO KEEP THEIR POWER. You being discriminated against is not possible. "A much more sensible position would be to say that reverse racism can exist, but that it is rare in comparison to examples of racism against historically marginalised groups and almost always less harmful." As a woman in the field, I have experienced a truly staggering amount of sexism and gendered exclusion, and it is VERY likely you will never know the amount of anxiety, rejection, and encouragement to not participate that women and people of color have. Honestly, how dare you.
    • 7/6: omg lol o.p. r u ok? poor u. omg i can't believe it. u poor poor super qualified very smart man. i hope u can overcome this! becuz u r very great very smart very qualitied! go u!
    • @DISCRIMINATION IN PLAIN SIGHT: Dude, relax. Did you just realize that there is no meritocracy? Why do you even mention you are gay etc? You are playing the same game of diversity i.e. judging candidates on qualities other than their skills relevant to the job. Being gay is not considered "diverse" anymore. The funny moment will come in a few years when just being female will not be considered "diverse" either. 
    • This screed is pretty gross, and there's no conspiracy to "keep people like [you] down"--none. If you're aligning yourself with James Damore in any way, perhaps you think women have inherently less aptitude for music theory, too. Intersectionality is not about whether or not you hate zucchini, so if you really want to tout your social justice reading, start with some Crenshaw. Your rant aside, if--and I'm not at all convinced this happened as reported--if the chair indeed reported to you that you were "the best-qualified candidate" and were not hired *primarily* due to your gender (see, there are other factors at work even in your over-the-top scenario), then that chair is incompetent to run a job search. 
    • I agree that this screed is pretty gross (occasionally laughably so), but if you're not convinced that this happened as reported, let it be known that I had a search committee chair say similar words to me at the conclusion of an interview. It's not at all surprising to hear this story, and I think it's incredibly unfortunate that search committee members choose to represent their hiring practices and motivations in this way. 
    • Agreed that the OP should've let himself cool off before deciding to post. Friendly advice to him: if you're writing anything in ALL CAPS and especially BOLDED ALL CAPS, you're likely still too angry to be firing off emails or posts. That said, I don't think there's any particular reason to question his story – this happens a lot and search committees are often under tremendous pressure to not hire a white male if there are other good candidates. Like the previous poster, I've been told a similar thing by a hiring committee. In my case, though, the chair told me the committee actually put me forward but the Dean said "no" because they wanted to hire a white male in a senior position at the same time and there was no way they were hiring two. And yes, the chair was incompetent to express such a thing to a candidate, whether or not it was true. My advice to the OP is to keep at it and don't let this embitter you. If you're good enough to get to the finals of a search, you'll likely get another shot before too long and eventually end up at a school that wants you enough to go to bat for you.
      • "Keep at it and don't let this embitter you"? Please don't be naive. There is absolutely zero guarantee in this field that those who are "good enough" will "likely get another shot before too long", let alone "eventually end up at a school that wants you enough to go to bat for you." If we were in a field where this scenario was actually real, then maybe candidates like the OP wouldn't be blaming diversity initiatives for their struggles on the market.
      • Whether or not the account is a fair one, how is this scenario any different from the not-so-long-ago years where a single woman was put on short list because they were female, then told they had no chance at the job? 
      • Everyone knows what this poster describes is true.  I'm a white male and have been told in private settings by several famous and powerful other white men in the field (composition) that "now is not a good time to be a white male [in the field]."  But nobody can state it openly for fear of the "powers that be" destroying any chance at a career.  Ultimately, it will all backfire, because people are being hired with weaker credentials, less talent, and fewer skills just to please various quotas.  Then the next generation will be even worse off.  And those [women] who are hired without proper skills will not be sincerely respected.  In fact, they will make people question any woman (or black, various other minorities, etc.)  It's really sad.  The truth is that for many reasons very few women have been interested in composition and theory.  And the truth is also that we won't be able to "correct" this historical fact by just hiring a bunch of women.  We can't just *make* people interested in something that they often don't want to do.  But that is what so many schools are trying to do.  I would go even further and say that there is no inherent problem with having a very heavy presence of white males in the field.  After all, they (we) are the ones who CREATED the entire field (and Western Civilization!).  Do we also need an equal proportion of white males doing Latin music or making Chinese opera?  Of course, nobody would suggest anything like that.  But it is what it is.  Those who don't have the skills are power hungry and will do whatever they can to keep their power and destroy anyone who doesn't belong to their group.  Interestingly, and very unfairly, Asians are not considered a minority in the field.  Anyway, any attempt to work on these issues publicly will be met with more corporate speak, accusations of sexism, and worse.  The best we can do is try to carve out our own place in the field in some way and then fight for true skills, talent, and credentials in our own way.
        • To say that men created the field/Western Civilization is ignorant and disgusting. Maybe you should go get another degree in ethnomusicology so you can know wtf you're talking about.
        • You know, I've felt serious discomfort at even bringing up the obvious drawbacks of the hiring process we've been discussing. Mostly because doing so makes colleagues reflexively accuse me of harboring awful and utterly cringeworthy views like these. So thanks for making it all the more difficult to have an honest and productive discussion about this!
          • Can't wait for this to backfire! I mean, how annoying is it that EVERY SINGLE WOMAN being hired is uninterested in her field, unqualified, and lacking talent! SAD! (•_•)
            <)  )╯
            /   \
          • If you are a more brilliant composer, theorist, researcher, teacher, and (evidently) historian than your female, etc. peers, I challenge you to prove it. Fight. Show us your "true skills, talent and credentials." Here. Now. Exhaustive and convincing historical evidence. Sound methodology. Well reasoned arguments. Convince me that White Men (caps intentional) created Western Civilization. Use logic (that hallowed language of the White Man). Because you'll have to convince your students, colleagues, not to mention hiring committees, of this... if we're being "honest." Feeling attacked? Exhausted? Tired of taking valuable time away from job applications to justify your intelligence, your identity, your very existence? Of carving out your own little place in a world that doesn't appreciate you or your needs, that prevents you from financial stability and happiness? (Now don't get emotional. It's not productive.).... *Sigh*.... Oh Bro, Sweet Little Bro-Child, all I can say is: welcome to *our* world. Because this is what we women have dealt with for decades. And we are the ones who are exhausted. 
        • These responses are perfect examples of the state of our field and much of the US politically correct/liberal discourse more broadly.  We cannot talk about obvious truths in public (or even anonymously in public forums), and if we do, we're attacked in all sorts of over-the-top and irrational and personal ways.  That's fine, but we should see it for what it is: the heated emotions of those without real talent or skills coming to the fore when a bit of reality shakes their fragile emotional core.  Nothing above is ignorant or disgusting, it's just true.  "Cringeworthy" is not a real thing, except perhaps to the generation raised online and with helicopter parents.  Also the post did not refer to "every single woman" being uninterested, unqualified, or without talent.  The point is that historically there have been many fewer women than men, and we can't change that overnight.  We can't force things to happen, especially when it involves making art--and hopefully great art.  On a related note, one of the responses asked for proof that "white men" created Western music or Western Civilization.  Well, if you know anything about music, maybe you've heard of Palestrina, Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninov, Sibelius, Wagner, Schoenberg, Berlioz, Verdi, Chopin, Bartok, and pick whichever other dozens of major figures in composition and theory you want.  Those are called men.  And they were definitely white.  Some were very white!  So you can lose your mind all you want and make personal attacks about "sweet little bro child" (By the way, I'm not a child, I'm not a bro, I'm not especially little, and I am definitely not sweet.), but it won't change the facts of history.  It is a historic reality that men were the ones who did the real work, developed technique, style, and individual voices.  If you really loved and understood the music, as some of us do, you'd be in awe of what they did--the level of craft and beauty could actually bring you to tears--instead of feeling ready to go to war when you are confronted with what you can easily read on Wikipedia.  The kinds of points made above have been made to me in private settings by men AND women faculty members of many of the most elite institutions in the US, often in the context of explaining how a certain woman got hired.  Everyone knows it's true, and the explosive nature of all these responses is more proof of that reality.  
          • Hey man, I know you're probably busy reading Philosophy, but I just wanted to let you know that someone has combined a 128kbps mp3 of Chopin's Nocturnes with a Windows Movie Maker slideshow and uploaded it to YouTube. Seeing as it could really use some more action in the comments section, why don't you swing by and give it the old "everyone in my class listens to Lil Peep, while I love Chopin and true art" treatment? Guaranteed "like" from Norman Lebrecht. 
            • I do not understand why a discussion of contemporary hiring practices is so triggering that it needs to devolve into a war over the validity of the Western Canon. But I also don't understand why gainfully employed people telling people who are struggling on the job market to just shut up and "deal with it" (see below) is in any way fair or respectful. What the hell is wrong with everyone here????
  • As a casual observer of the wiki, I have to say that I am astonished at the levels of immaturity observed in this conversation from prospective applicants who believe they are qualified to teach and be examples to young adults. If you're complaining about discrimination among white men in our field, you are not qualified to hold a position with such a high level of social capital as being a college professor. Full stop.
  • (7/9b) As someone not on the market but who has been on a few SCs, I'd like to weigh in with a couple thoughts. 1) Assuming that any part of OP's story is true, there is almost zero chance that the search committee denied him for gender reasons alone. As has been said before--on this wiki, this year in fact--attitudes such as the ones we see in OP's post (belligerent entitlement, tendency to fly off the handle) manifest themselves in interviews and campus visits. 2) Past a certain point, it's true that the job market is not a meritocracy, nor can it be or should it be. Everyone comes in with a doctorate from somewhere and a CV with some conference papers and maybe a publication or two. But it's not like there's some kind of algorithm where three second-tier publications equals five regional conference papers or one top-tier publication (or whatever the equivalent is in composition). There's this myth that there are candidates who are "better qualified." What is that supposed to mean? On an SC, after the initial weeding-out process (e.g., in a theory search we probably won't consider someone with a DM in bassoon), we're looking for people who write well and whose research is interesting. Those are already subjective considerations and are going to require some faculty consensus. On a campus visit, it's going to boil down to the teaching and who seems like the best fit for the department. If at that stage (or even the Skype interview), you're going around waving your CV and touting your twelve SMT papers and your five JMT articles, you're really missing the point. 3) I can't believe I'm saying this in 2019, but here we are: a variety of different perspectives on music is good for everyone--the students, the faculty, and the field. At my school, we don't want a department who are all going to say the same thing all the time, that would be pointless. We don't want everyone to be from an Ivy League institution, we don't want everyone to be an eighteenth-century scholar, and we don't want everyone to be male. And when it's down to three final candidates, they're all going to be "qualified" for the job in different ways--and one of those qualifications might be the ability to bring better representation to the department and to the field, in order to help our school and our society grow.
    • I'm sure you'll say that I'm "missing the point", but I'd invite you to step outside the privilege you have as a gainfully employed faculty member and consider what it may be like for the people struggling to get a job right now. The reasoning you've provided demonstrates that a search committee can easily find a way to rationalize hiring literally anyone for any reason. For candidates who've spent years in a doctoral program being told - by faculty members like you, no less - that no accomplishment is ever good enough, this can seem extraordinarily frustrating and unfair. Is it an excuse for turning to the bigotry you see in the posts above? Absolutely not. But if you're going to defend your hiring practices like this, I would suggest showing a bit more empathy for what we're all going through, rather than saying that our frustation with the process simply must be coming from a place of entitlement and arrogance. 
    • But wait, this would imply that the aforementioned faculty member is *actually* there because they *earned* their way into that position through a meritocratic process. See, it's a perfect example of do what I say, not what I do. Nothing excuses the arrogance and ethnocentric rhetoric of the earlier post (not necessarily the first one, but the one about "white men inventing music, so there"), but if faculty members are going to claim that "yeah, sure no one said this was a perfect merit-based process" and then lecture us about our so-called entitlement, well, maybe they are the ones not cut out for the job. 
    • (7/9b again): I appreciate that the two responses above are measured and (mostly) free from ad hominem criticism, so I'd like to continue the discussion. Let me try, as suggested, to consider what it may be like for the people struggling to get a job right now. The way I see it, supply and demand are currently further out of whack than they've ever been, and demand is actually getting even lower as Universities rely more and more on contingent labor--and the other effect of that is that even adjunct positions are hard to come by, but people feel like they need to take those positions to keep one foot in academia. I imagine it's incredibly demoralizing to take one of these positions, in which the best you can often do is in the high four figures. Okay, I honestly don't know what to do about all that. I could say that people should start refusing to work as adjuncts, but based on experience that won't solve the problem: the school will either just cancel whatever course it was, or increase the teaching load of the t-t faculty. If others have ideas about how to solve this problem, I would love to discuss them. I apologize if my earlier post came across as lecturing about entitlement, my use of that term was only directed at OP. So here's what makes me frustrated and angry, though: somewhere along the way, someone seems to have given you (the general "you," as in many people on this thread) the idea that *doing* a bunch of things would equal a tenure-track hire, and I have no idea why you would be told that or by whom. Yes, to a certain extent, a record of conference presentations and/or publications is an indication that your scholarship is solid, but that's about it. When a journal accepts an article for publication, they're affirming that the scholarship in the article is well-researched, well-written, and likely of interest to our field. When an SC makes a hiring decision, they're deciding that your research complements their *specific* department and that your teaching is suitable to their *specific* group of students, particularly undergrads, who may never have a chance to benefit from your research agenda (depending on the kind of school it is). So they're completely different metrics. I'm not saying that people on here are entitled, but I'm troubled by the phrase "no accomplishment is ever good enough," because it implies that at some point, there should be an "enough" that you can do in order to secure a t-t position. That's just not the case, and again it's really maddening to me that others have led you to believe that it is. I can't imagine there's a single field that doesn't work this way. I mean, if you're HR at a hospital and you want to hire an RN, everyone that walks in the door is going to have the right degree and probably some experience--so the hiring decision will be based on "fit" as much as, or more than, some list of qualifications.
      • I appreciate this. I should say that I'm speaking from a composer's perspective - not a scholar's - and that by "accomplishment" I mean not simply awards and commissions and festivals, but accumulated teaching experience across multiple disciplines as well. I certainly was led to believe that working to accumulate the experience I lacked - and improving the skills I was told I was bad at - surely would make me a good candidate, and that eventually it would be "enough" for a TT job. Having a broad base of teaching experience and professional accomplishment should, in theory, give a candidate a very good chance at being a good "fit" for more than one department's "specific" needs, which is why I made a point of accumulating additional skills and experience. "Fit" is still a vague catch-all term, however, and it's exactly what I was referring to above ("a search committee can easily find a way to rationalize hiring literally anyone for any reason.") If "fit" trumps everything else, even after you've spent years working to make yourself a better "fit", what else is left? Is anything ever "enough"? Candidates have zero power over this process, of course, but I hope that bringing this up will help the people with actual power think about why they make the decisions they do, and maybe even give some thought to what "fit" should really mean for them.
  • (7/9c) As someone who is on the market for 4-5 years, recent top Ivy DMA, Guggenheim, numerous performances, lectures, publications, etc., I can attest to the fact that Academia is not a meritocracy. Many of my peers and colleagues are simply doing what many others, and by that I mean women and artists of color (side note, there must be a better way than that phrase trope that includes female artists of color) were doing before the current move to shift the hiring balance: working in the field and just that. But, I will say that the poster above either teaches at a brilliant enlighted school or isn't being truthful. Schools *do* want Ivy grads, and then *do* want eighteenth-century musicologists, I don't know how you can say otherwise, just look at the evidence. As irritating as it has been to be a white male coming on the market right when this turn started, I knew that it was important and that I respected the process. It also demonstrated the remarkable amount of sexism, bigotry and other prejudice, as evinced by the "we invented it" poster above. God, shit like that is exactly why composers have no artistic or social currency today. Speaking of which, however, the response above that claims "such a high level of social capital as being a college professor", is also similarly out of touch with the current state of the Academy, which is that being a professor has very little social capital left, and in a certain way, deservingly so. Precisely because the University isn't a meritocracy, yet also claims to be the general arbiter of truth, high culture and secular morality, means that those claims are unfounded and often wrong. Then there is also the staggering amount of abuse, both psychological and physical that occurs within its confines, and the often under developed emotional capactity of a bunch of whiny, entitled professors who basically have one of the cushiest jobs in the West, yet endlessly complain about pretty much everything. The door swings both ways, Search Committee members. I've had a campus interview at a UC where the saerch failed, and then the program basically fell apart the year after because of the incompetence of the leadership, or phone interviews with tenured professors who use the word "intersectionality" so wrong it makes your head spin, for example. I'm making my way in this world just fine so far. I'm grateful for my time in the Doctoral program, the resources it gave me and the people I met and became friends and colleagues with, but from the outside perspective, Academia is a terrible place, and there are almost zero schools I would want to be a part of, to invest in spiritually and work with mediocre colleagues who, because of the fucked-up hierarchies of the system as a whole, would basically dictate terms until the tenure process is finished. I hear your points about that entitlement, and I agree with you all, but my counterclaim is this: what does the academy have to offer me, other than a salary? I can get a job as a manager at the Hells Kitchen Panda Express and make more money than a junior CUNY professor. Explain that to me, especially when coupled with the dwindling lack of prestige and social importance that the Professoriat have in Trump's America.
    • It seems that you're missing the point. You don't go into the professoriat to be rich. You don't do it for presitge because frankly no one cares outside of an incredibly small group of people. You become a professor to help shape the world and its future - teach young adults, push the boundaries of human knowledge. You seem to think there's still no social capital left in the Academy - which I'm sorry that you believe that - but there is still plenty of good that we do. If you don't think so, then maybe you aren't cut out for the job. 
    • That is such bullshit. How dare you claim to "expand the boundaries of human knowledge". Who the fuck are you, a musicologist writing papers almost no one ever reads? A theorist doing analysis that only other theorists care about? Cause if you teach at an Ivy, or similarly ranked private school for the hyper-privileged, than you're only serving as more more cog in the larger economic wheel of oppressive neoliberalism. Or if you teach music at a public school in America then you're really doing God's work, aren't you, teaching those kids who show up to school barely literate, and somehow you have to get them to understand medieval polyphony or what a modulation is before they go out and forget all about it as soon as the semester is over. It's impossible to deny that only a fraction of the work done in the Academy actually matters, and if you think you're "expanding boundaries", well, I get the feeling you're just glad you didn't end up as a high-school teacher, god forbid that would come to pass and you'd lose your precious social capital.
  • (7/10) Passions are high on here, for good reason. The majority of us are in unstable situations, either as advanced graduate students, adjuncts, or just straight-up unemployed. And, it must be said, the majority of us won’t receive that stable theory or musicology job we’ve been training upwards the past decade for. Many of us are facing downright traumatic situations. I get it. But the heated exchanges on here won’t lead us to a discussion about how to fix this industry or even what types of support we might need at present, such as how to pursue career outside of academia. Policies on diversity hires do not shape the fact that there are 100–150 people clamoring for one job, that our industry operates on structural unemployment to keep it going, and that the majority of faculty don’t understand how to begin to acknowledge the reality of the situation that their students face. The first poster’s wild speculations, ranting, use of caps lock, and typos all point to desperation, not that he doesn’t understand diversity or intersectionality correctly, or even that a woman beat him out of a job, but that he’s left with no job at all. He’s in pain. All of us who haven’t been absorbed into the academy as faculty members are in pain. Bottom line is that the academic job market is pretty much irrational—you can’t trace a logic from one search committee to another. And yet we all try to manufacture reasons for why some people deserve their cushy positions and others don’t. But who deserves to be unemployed? To me, what’s tragic is that tenured and tenure-track faculty on Twitter are taking this as an occasion to virtue signal to all of their followers that they endorse diversity hiring practices—some are even mocking the original poster, or speculating that he must’ve deserved his fate. They should be ashamed of themselves for these antics, of their steadfast refusal to engage with deeper issues of the job market, of their scorn for the pain and suffering of those beneath them in ridiculously fraught career situations. We must look to the bigger problems. Only by banding together do we even have a chance of building some sort of coalition to articulate and address the problems facing the academic job market, and to develop a support system for the most precarious among us.
    • Thank you. I genuinely do hope that the people in power are the ones thinking the hardest about this (though Twitter would indicate otherwise). The takeaway here is not that some frustrated (white) men out there are thinking bigoted thoughts about diversity hiring practices, so calling out the language used above and then watching the likes, retweets, adulation and flattery roll in does absolutely nothing to solve the problems you've articulated so well. We have got to start engaging with the deeper issues here. If gainfully employed faculty members take knowledge from this exchange to heart the next time they're on a search committee, maybe they'll end up making a better hiring decision in the end. Or at least demonstrating some humility and empathy towards their applicant pool, which may, in fact, be full of people who happen to be more qualified and accomplished than they are.
  • (Start a Union) As this discussion has turned to the labor crisis in academia (which doesn't excuse racism, sexism, or any other discrimination), a friendly reminder that the only way out is through faculty solidarity to counter the neoliberal models of the administration. Faculty solidarity doesn't mean just sympathy to the plight of the precariat. It means ~ehem, looking at YOU Tenured Facutly ~ building unions that cut across position types. As much as the bosses (admin) try to turn university degrees into consumer products, the degrees, at least for the most part, are still earned by students taking classes. We're the workers doing that work of teaching. The threat of collectively withholding that (strike!), through unionized collective action, is really the only effective way to start to change the situation. Then it will be possible to take university governance back from the CEO wannabes. There are more university students than ever before. There are more classes than ever before. We can have stable jobs for those teaching the classes only if we collectively stop quibbling over the scraps of jobs and start taking these instutions back for ourselves. Grad students have been organizing for this. It's time for Tenured Faculty to use their priviledges to lead comprehensive faculty unions and negotiate collective contracts. 
    • This is a very serious discussion and I do not want to write something here that would be re-twitted--this is not at all to belittle concerns about misogyny, racism, the exploitative labor conditions of the academic precariat, or other forms of injustice. Let me react to ONE aspect of the original poster's message. In communicating with search committees after a campus interview that results in a rejection e-mail / phone call, I would ask ONE question: "can you please give ME feedback about MY performance during the interview?" OR: "I have another campus interview in a few weeks / I am going on the market again next year, can you please give me feedback on MY interview?" I have posed this question after getting rejections following campus interviews. I have received the following responses: 1) No response (by e-mail); 2) "Your performance was very strong, the search just went in a different direction"; 3) "You might want to do XYZ in your job talk and ABC in your teaching demonstration." Needless to say, response #3 has been the most helpful to me as a job applicant (now on the tenure track). I remember very viscerally as a job applicant that response #2 seemed suspect as b.s., but it is in fact entirely possible that it was true and that somebody else performed better, seemed like a better fit, was more highly qualified than I am (in term of publications or what not), etc. When a candidate is brought to campus, the premise is (or at least should be) that the applicant is very highly qualified for the job and "a good fit" for the institution. In fact, though the power dynamic is generally extremely asymmetrical to the applicant's detriment, the search committee is "running the risk" of hiring any candidate brought to campus, which at times can seem daunting to them after 48 hours of quality time (they can have an offer or two turned down and/or have a decision overturned by a university administrator). Of course, they can declare one or more candidate unfit for the job (due to poor performance related to the job or "poor fit" or some rationalization of how the candidate's behavior during the interview will not translate well to "mentoring our students" or whatever, which can really mean "what kind of colleague is this person going to be.") But then they are risking a failed search if they get turned down and do not have a remaining acceptable candidate to make an offer to. I recommend Karen Kelsky's "The Professor Is In" book and/or blog. As an anthropologist-turned-job-coach, she is much more competent and conversant than I am in critical discourses regarding class, race, gender, sexuality, etc., and has interesting advice for the various stages of the academic (or post-academic) job hunt. Good luck to everyone.
  • 7/15: I'm confused here. It looks like, at least in the "theory only" section, 14 of the jobs are listed as going to men, and 8 are listed as going to women. This isn't an environment where a man can't get a job.
  • 7/15b: Yep, and the OP that started this whole thing is a composer, where it looks like (for Composition Only) six jobs went to men and five to women. I'm not seeing the systemic oppression of men here. Also, FWIW, and referencing some of the comments above, it looks like only a very small number of jobs went to Ivy-Leaguers.
  • 7/16: To posters 7/15 and 715b above: You are assuming that the male-to-female ratio in the applicant pool is similar to that of those receiving jobs, which may not be correct. If the demographics of composition grad programs leans strongly male, then having roughly half the jobs go to female candidate may represent a preference for female candidates. A few years ago, for example, there was a point on the wiki where about 3 out of 4 music theory jobs had gone to female candidates, despite (based on a rough scan of top theory programs) only about 1 out of 4 grad students in music theory being female. Admittedly, the reason that only 1 out of 4 grad students in music theory are female may be a byproduct of music theory faculty skewing male. Does that mean we should hope to have more female faculty members? Perhaps so. But if the hiring committee expressly states a preference for the hire to be female, which we all know through the grapevine to have been the case in at least a few searches, then that is illegal under the Equal Employment Opportunity Act. And so given how tight the job market is, with many graduates currently unemployed, it seems understandable for someone (e.g., a white male) to feel frustrated by that situation. Does this frustration pale in comparison to that of women or minorities with hiring systems of the past (or even today)? Sure. But let's remember that our goal is Equal Opportunity, in which race and gender do not factor into the hiring process, and unfortunately that's still not the case today.
    • Or...maybe that only about 1 in 4 graduate students in theory are female because of systemic sexism in the field that is currently being addressed by recognizing the great work that women do in the field and hiring them appropriately to the jobs they've earned? Equal Opportunity isn't hiring based on the ratio of gender, it's giving everyone the opportunity to apply to the job equally - and by golly, there have been a lot of women in the past who were more than qualified who were passed up for jobs or not given tenure. Shame on search committees for actually coming to their senses and recognizing the amazing work that these women have done and hired them to their positions (*heavily dripping in sarcasm*). Whoever you are OP - if you think that your overt sexism isn't coming through in your applications and interviews, you are sorely mistaken. There's a reason that you're not getting hired - because you're just a trash human being. You could have all of the awards and accolades in the world - no one wants to be your colleague...especially for "life" (i.e. tenure). And all you do is use this very public forum to air your misguided grievances to many observers and participants who are frankly done reading this shit. Perhaps rather than complain, you could better spend your time learning a new skill and prep for a career outside music?
    • But let's be clear: Addressing the purpoted systemic sexism in the field by hiring a candidate because (among other factors) that candidate is female is illegal and goes against the ideals of the Equal Employment Opportunity Act. Morevoer, when Equal Employment Opportunity is working properly, assuming all other factors are the same, the ratio of male-to-female hires will roughly mirror the ratio of male-to-female candidates.
    • Actually it is exactly in line with the "ideals" of the Equal Opportunity Employment Act, which was designed as a corrective to decades and decades of systematic discrimination against women and people of color. It's not like the Act was written because people were saying "whoa, hold up, white men aren't getting jobs." It might not adhere to the *letter* of the Act, but I'm okay with the idea that a law passed in 1972 might need some updating according to today's standards. And the ratio of male-to-female hires should ideally mirror the ratio of male-to-female people working in the field, not how many choose to apply for a given job. For music theory, that's currently around 70/30. So if the Act is "working properly," a departmet of ten theorists should have at minimum three women. 
    • Hmmm. You seem to be implying a sort of compensatory system of hiring, wherein previous imbalances in hiring practices are offset by a current counterbalance. I can certainly see the logic of that thinking, although I disagree with it and personally believe it goes against the ideals of the EEO act. The problem is that for the candidate on the other end of that counterbalance, it's now harder to get a job because of their gender or race (e.g., male) than if gender or race were not a factor. Undoubtedly, this is much like the system perhaps was decades ago for those of the other gender (e.g., female). But we must at least be sympathetic to the frustration of a current candidate on the wrong end of that counterbalance, in that they are paying for the imbalances of generations prior. Assuming a 70/30 male-female distribution in the field, it's telling that you say a department of ten theorists should have "at minimum" three women, implying that more would be OK but fewer not, since this position inherently disadvantages male candidates. Perhaps we need such "unequal" employment opportunities to offset previous inequities. But can we at least agree that equal empolyment opportunity is the ultimate goal (and the current law), and until we get there, some segment of people will understandably be unhappy?
    • Yes, I believe you read my comment and its implications correcty. And I basically agree with your last sentence. (By the way, I am the "Actually it is..." poster but not the "Or...maybe" poster. We've gotten away from the dating convention on this wiki so I wanted to clarify that).
  • 7/17 I've been at this probably longer than most of the people posting, and have witnessed quite a bit, both good and extremely ugly. I have seen extremely well qualified people, both men and women, get excellent jobs at great schools. I have also seen extremely poorly qualified people, again both men and women, get excellent jobs at great schools. When I was finishing my degree, my department hired a woman who was not wanted by the faculty (which was 50% women) nor by the students. The department was pressured by a provost to make the hire. They wound up giving this person tenure, in spite of limited productivity and extremely poor teaching reviews, because the department was afraid that they wouldn’t get a line to make another hire. At the same time, I have seen extremely well qualified women, some close friends, get passed over in favor of less qualified men because they had a good in with the department. I have seen composers with Ivy League degrees receive positions when they don’t have the necessary skills in basic harmony and counterpoint to fulfill the teaching obligation, and I have seen people who are guilty of plagiarism (also from the Ivy League or similar) get positions at top tier institutions. This year alone, one very good job was given to a man, who I’m surprised was even capable of finishing a Ph.D. (he talks a good game), and another was given to a women, who in no way fit the advertised job description, presumably because her husband is very close to someone who has quite a bit of influence in the department. 

    If there are two candidates who are equally qualified it might come down to a coin toss on the part of the search committee. If a well qualified women, African American, etc. wins the toss over a white male, then so be it. I can sleep well at night, and still have faith in the integrity of the academy, knowing that someone good won a position in a very competitive market. But what steams me are poorly qualified people who get jobs simply because of the outsized influence of certain advisors, solely on personal connections, or because the search committee has decided that they want someone who checks off box “X.” 

    By the way, and especially the OP, if you want to be outraged, why not address the issue of ageism in the hiring process? There are many people, myself included, who had the misfortune of finishing our degrees between 2007 and 2010, when there were few jobs available and many searches were cancelled. Many of us have remained productive in our fields and have accumulated mad sacks of teaching experience. We continue to do it because we love what we do, and perhaps of equal importance, we love teaching. Yet, we are in our late 30s to mid 40s (some older), and 10 years out of our degrees, so we are treated like lepers by search committees. For instance, friend of mine who has a Ph.D. in theory from Eastman, and has been cited by many people much younger than her, and is now considered untouchable, even though she is still producing meaningful work and has teaching experience at a variety of institutions. I suppose that the guidelines of the EEOC are not applicable to people above 35.
  • I've read this blog for some time from a distance and wanted to offer a few words of caution.  To the poster who initiated this tirade against women, please know that the theory world is very small, and you have likely outed yourself as a sexist. Word travels fast, especially with such clear descriptions of the "characters" involved. Also, as someone who has been on numerous committees over the years, I want to advise those who are ranting here that it is often the case that your personal issues shine forth under the pressure of an interview. When you are filled with the rage and hostility being expressed on many sides of this discussion, it inevitably comes out in unexpected ways in person. Finally, there seems to be some overly dramatic lamenting about the tight market.  The truth is the job search has always been difficult.  There have never been enough jobs.  At the same time, those who are meant for the field have a way of finding their place within a year or two. In my own institution we have always been open to hiring ABD and those who are in visiting positions or those holding major fellowships. The formula is simple: we want the best. That's it! My advice would be to focus more on your conference presentations, publication record, and networking during graduate school. In many cases, candidates are identified early on even before a search is publicly announced.
    • 7/21 Well thanks for confirming that A.) the game is rigged (something that many of us have suspected) and B.) that you, and presumably your insititution, endorse age discrimination. Look, there are a variety of reasons why someone might not win a position within a few years after finishing their degree that have nothing to do with not being destined for securing a tenure track job. Personally, I was tied to my geographic region for several years after I finished (for reasons that I will not go into here) and simply could not apply widely. But I managed to remain active in the field to the extent that my CV is at least on par with, and often times better than, those who may be reviewing my applications, and certainly someone who is about to go up for tenure. I know several others in the same position. So then, what constitutes being "the best" if not a strong track record in the field, evidence of further productivity, securing grants, and a ton of teaching experience? Is it simply having the right advisor at the right time, finishing the degree no more than two years ago, and maybe having an article and a half ready to be published? 
      • Not the above poster, but if you chose not to apply for jobs from all regions, you have no room to complain. Academe is not for the faint of heart or those who want the comfort of home, family, the beach, the Big City, or anything else. You can read and write all you want anyplace in the world, but if you want the privilege of a tenure-track position, you must be willing to give it your all. Without more details, I cannot say the value of your advisor or pedigree. However, it seems, based on your simple refusal to even try to get a job, that you are not cut out for the field.
        • My god, people like you who judge others without knowing what their situation was/is are something else. Look you immoral moron, I "chose" to take care of my terminally ill wife which is why I "refused" to look for work. But you're right, I should have forced her to move, and change doctors, as well as her treatment plan, at time when she could barely walk. I guess I'm really not cut out for academia. I had a larger responsibility to my partner, which seemingly makes me weak and unfit. And it certainly wasn't a comfortable situation that kept me from applying widely, you self righteous prick. Why don't you go back to reading Ayn Rand, and get back to me if you find yourself in a similar situation. I hope you don't but don't start f***ing lecturing people about crap that you know nothing about. 
    • (Start a Union): "At the same time, those who are meant for the field have a way of finding their place within a year or two." My god. No wonder the academy is collapsing. If this is the median tenured faculty understanding of the labor crisis in academia (not to mention the broader restructuring of higher ed) we are truly f*kkd. It's no wonder our entire profession is becoming more and more contingent, as these people with secure jobs, watching the administration cut full time employment and even their own benefits, assure themselves of their annointed place on their intellectual perches, saying to themselves, "yes, I'm here because I deserve it, so anyone with troubles simply isn't as great as I am. The structural conditions of labor have nothing to do with this. Those adjuncts on welfare deseve their fate because they're just not good enough. And why can't they publish working 80 hours a week just in teaching, lazy bums." Meant. For. The. Field. Let's not even get into how until very very recently, as demonstrated by the whining of the OP, "those meant for the field" just happened to look a certain way, and be a certain gender, and come from a certain class. My god. With colleagues like this it's a wonder any of us want to continue working in academia under any circumstances at all, let alone the fact that there are no jobs. I guess we're collectively brainwashed, but at least we're not as delusional as this prof. 
      • Similar to the previous comment, a lot of what you wrote has nothing to do with the situation. The discussion is about getting an academic position, not broader trends in the economy or any perceived "labor crisis" or race or gender or anything else. Your anger and rage and online rants will not get you a job. I suggest anger management counseling.
      • Yes, academic jobs exist on a separate existential plane from the rest of the world, and are not affected by broader trends in the restructuring of the economy, let alone those in higher ed. Intellectual work, likewise, is not connected to material conditions in any way, is not a product of human history, and therefore has nothing to do with the subjectivity of those producing it. Women and people of color weren't kept out of the academy forever because of structural discrimination, they were simply too simple grasp the genius of people like you and I. So you're right, instead of trying to change employment conditions for the better for myself, my colleagues, and my students, I should bask in the cerebral joy of the sublime by analyzing the tonal arrangements of the same limited selection of dead white men, over and over ad infinitum, until I die early from a preventable illness because the university insurance plan no longer covers a medically necessary procedure. Perfect.   

"When you're accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression."

Buck up and learn to be resilient, snowflakes. No one owes you anything, let alone a job. And if you're bitter because it's going to a woman/pic/etc., then you're just a bigot.

Deal with it.



7/24 It often doesn't take a lot of moral pondering to argue, but it does take a whole lot of effort and intuition to do something genuinely good for someone else. I don't really see how putting labels on people, accusing them of wrong, or the like accomplishes anything. If you care about making academia a better place, show it by the things you do. The first step to making the world a better, more accepting place is to recognize the inherent value in other human beings and treating them as such. 


  • From 5120j: Heads up to the Music Theory/Composition community - due to changes in life circumstances, I have decided that I will not be moderating/monitoring the theory wiki this year. I've gotten the page started, but that will be the extent of my involvement. Since I've been the one adding most jobs to the wiki for the past few seasons, I wanted to let everyone know so you all can be more pro-active about adding them yourselves.
  • Here is the list of bookmarks that I've used. These are basically in priority order - most positions show up on one of the first 5 or 6 sites, so it's fairly quick to click through the rest of the list.
  • 7/23: Thank you, moderator, for your great service to our community of job seekers. Is there any individual or group of individuals who might be willing to monitor the sources mentioned and continue inputting job opportunities into the wiki?
  • 8/21: Do we have anyone who is willing / able to act as moderator or co-moderator?
  • 9/1: I'd be happy to work as co-moderator. I've just updated the Millikin University position with a link to the specific job ad. I'd welcome any additional co-moderators to edit this page.
  • 9/2: Have we done away with the Composition Only category? 
  • 9/8: (re: 9/2) I don't think we have done away with the Composition Only category; it's just that the jobs that fall into that category haven't come up quite yet, or so it seems to me at least.

11/6: Anyone have updates on the composition jobs? Info seems pretty scarce so far...


11/7: For those with more experience: is it okay to contact a search committee if you haven't heard anything back in a while? How long should you wait until it's appropriate to contact them? Or should we just treat silence as negative outcome?

  • 11/7 (2): I wouldn't bother them unless you have another offer or a significant update to your C.V. (like an article acceptance). And these things can take a long time, so don't despair—silence is neutral, not negative! 
  • 11/12: As an applicant who's been on the market for more than a few years, I think this is particularly unhelpful advice. This entire Wiki probably wouldn't exist if institutions and search committees bothered to inform their applicants when a search moves forward to the next round, let alone about a potential timeline for the whole search. And you can have all the cordial interactions you'd like with members of a committee, but they still won't reveal where they are in their process. So I've found that it's far better to assume that silence must be negative, then just move on to the next thing. If you're pleasantly surprised later, then great.
  • 11/16 Yes, in principle you should let the search committee call you, don't call them, they should court you if they are so inclined. Yes, if you have an article acceptance (/new big commission / performance / prize as a composer, say), contact them with a CV update. Yes, the whole process is nerve-wracking and painful from the applicant's perspective. It is unfortunate, but I don't think that there's much wisdom in contacting the search committee unsolicited, since they are busy with whatever procedures they have for narrowing the list of applicants. (Same goes for sending materials that you haven't been asked for at that stage of the process). If you are considering an offer from a different school and would like to know if you're still in consideration for their search, that's different.

2/7: Is there any information out about the Winthrop University department chair search? The music admin wiki doesn't have much information this year.

3/8: CAZGEM please stop deleting important stuff!!! Each line here is product of the cumulative effort of a community.

3/11: When I interviewed for my current job in 2012, I was one of three candidates brought to campus for an on-site interview. I was at a meeting last week where I discovered that 30 new faculty searches on our campus will lead to 60 candidates visiting, suggesting that there's a new institutional limit on the number of on-site candidates of two, presumably for budget reasons. I'm curious if those on other campuses have seen a similar move toward limiting the number of candidates brought to campus. How many candidates are being brought in for these posted 2019-20 jobs? How many have been brought in before? Anecdotes can be helpful, but I would love enough responses to be able to start inferring some statistical trends (or lack thereof). Thanks!

3/18, @3/11: Does that 60 number include some adjunct or instructional faculty? In my experience, these positions are sometimes filled after the phone interview round, or by bringing only one candidate at a time on a rolling basis.  But I've never been close to a TT search that had (intentionally) only 2 finalists.  Too few finalists runs the risk of a failed search, which is a liability for an administration trying to save money. 3/18: original 3/11 poster @3/18: While we have a number of adjunct searches going on, this tally was for the 30 new TT positions we're hiring this year. I think this is a new policy here, and perhaps a high rate of failure may encourage the administration to modify this policy later.

3/18, @3/11: The search last year that resulted in my TT job had only 2 finalists invited for on-campus interviews and I believe that is the policy at my (regional, private, very budget-concious) university. I've never heard of it anywhere else though.  


3/18: Is there a page rule against asking for updates on specific positions? Not sure why my last post was deleted.

3/18 (2): Someone undid your post because you deleted a lot of important information when you added that line. (In fact you did it again by deleting the UGA theory position). Occasional requests for updates, particularly from places who've been radio silent for a while, are OK.

  • 3/19: Strange, I rarely submit edits and did not delete anything. Not sure how typing in one line deleted something else.
  • 3/19: You did it again with this last edit (I fixed it already). You must make sure that you're editing the most recent version of the page. Somehow you keep editing a previous version, which means when you add a line, it deletes all edits made after the old version that you're editing. Make sure you are going to the Edit page from the blue dropdown at the top right version of the main page, not from any other link (like from the RSS recent edits feed).

School-Specific Discussion[]

Emory-Composition/Theory[]

  • Emory confirms its position as a Southern regional school by choosing to hire their own VAP, a person with very minimal qualifications and no elite credentials, over any of the dozens of experienced and/or elite candidates who pursued this job.  This is especially disappointing considering the position was advertised as looking for someone who would come with or close to tenure, yet they chose to go in the opposite direction.  This signals a lack of confidence in their own program and a lack of desire to reach the next level.  For those of us who know what Emory could become, it's sad to watch this continued parochialism, nepotism, and lack of vision.    
  • Take a chill pill and consider how offensive and out-of-touch this is.
  • 2/27 It's been mentioned here before, erogance and entitlement are not healthy collegial qualities, nor do they mask easily. These qualities likely contribute to a committee's decision not to advance a candidate. 
  • 2/27 (2) Another take on a chill pill: Stockhausenian delusions of grandeur are not a quality that I would value in a colleague. While I know very little about the particulars of this situation, which makes it very difficult to judge from the outside or make any responsible statement, I think that we're somewhat safe to assume that a very fine school like Emory University did very well not to hire the person who posted this, even if that person has ultra-regional / national / international / elite-cosmic credentials, as well as a cosmic vision that far transcends Emory's alleged "parochialism." (I don't even want to think about the severe "threat" that Emory would have posed to that individual's creative trajectory if hired.... Seems like this is benefitting everybody....)
  • 2/28 and, finally: WTF are "elite credentials"? What's that even supposed to mean?
    • 2/28 "Elite credentials" is a phrase open to interpretation, but could be taken to mean: a doctorate from an Ivy League institution, or a comparable top graduate program (likely one that offers a stipend, where acceptance is highly competitive), recogntion in the form of domestic awards (American Academy of Arts and Letters, Guggenheim Fellowship, Rome Prize) or international prizes, and a strong record of performances, preferably also international. In the past, these were considered a standard of achievement that would strengthen any department and attract potential students, who in turn aimed for these same goals. There is no longer any such widely accepted standard. These credentials are now considered highly subjective or, at worst, suspect, as they can come across as proof of an elitist, exclusive tradition. Perhaps it's not right to assume that such a track record necessarily translates into a desirable hire, though there's an argument to be made that repeated distinctions bear some weight. However, it would be equally damning to assume that anyone who does have such a CV is "too good for the job," especially as priorities shift in the face of increasingly scarce opportunities.
  • 2/28 (2): @ 2/27: "nor do they mask easily." I wish everyone on the job market would read that phrase a hundred times. We can tell when you think you're too good for the job market; it means you will come in also thinking you're too good for the job.
    • 2/28 (3) Maybe it's already too late to salvage this conversation, but what are some concrete steps that people with "elite" credentials can take to disabuse a potential employer of the notion that they think they're "too good" for a particular job? Aside from, perhaps, not saying things like the original comment above?
    • 2/28 (4) Nothing. As one of those individuals with multiple "elite credentials" (also, I'm not the OP), I have applied for something like 75 jobs, post-docs and fellowships and have only ever had one interview, which was when I was ABD. The market is terrible, and it appears that there are a certain number of individuals for whom credentials and sucess in the professional field—the very metric of evaluation by which we can rank candidates as qualified or not—seem to matter less, and in the case above, turn some away. We're lucky enough to be in a field that also defines sucess as external to the academy. In fact, many academic jobs since I've been looking have gone precisely to people who aren't working that much in the field: "those who can't do, teach". Keep working, it's the only thing you can actually be in control of, but at the end of the day it's hard not to be brutally embittered and crushed by the constant rejection, having earned the highest levels of accreditation, seemingly for naught.
    • 2/28 (5) Some of you may find solace in telling yourselves you didn't land a respectable academic gig because you were too good for it, but boy does this coping mechanism seem delusional & megalomaniacal to me.
    • 2/28 (4) What, by working professionally and sucessfully in the field for which we were trained? Not everyone has the same path, artistically or academically, and nowhere did I mention that my credentials make me "too good" for a school. Before you start calling people "delusional & megalomaniacal", maybe you ought to take a chill pill yourself.
    • 2/28 (5) Chill pill taken but this thread still reeks of hubris. I'm gonna take a nap, chill pill has got me real relaxed. 
    • 2/28 (6) If you think it's "hubris" to push back against people reflexively calling the credentials you've achieved "highly suspect" and "elitist", then clearly you need a "coping mechanism" for your own paranoia. If an applicant says things like the comment that started this thread, then fine. But presuming that everyone out there who's frustrated by this entire process must think they're too good for a job is incredibly unfair.
    • 2/28 (5) Oh no, not everyone is like that; if that were true, this field would be unbearably toxic (more than currently). It's just some people on this thread, including the OP, whose reaction shows I touched a nerve. I rest my case though, because Plastic Dwarf Warlord below has finally brought logic & reason to this thread with a great piece of advice. I think he/she/they should have the last word here.
    • 3/1 -- 2/28 (3) had proposed a discussion of "some concrete steps that people with 'elite' credentials can take to disabuse a potential employer of the notion that they think they're 'too good' for a particular job." Maybe another way to phrase that would be, "How do I signal to a search committee that I really want this job?" (which, I know, most of us just want A JOB, specifics be damned). The "we're looking for the right fit" line from search committees can be pablum, but I do think that regardless of your credentials, schools are looking for someone who signals in their materials and interviews that they've thought seriously about the specifics of the position and how they would be positioned to meet or exceed the expectations within the context of the school. So: research on the department and curriculum of the school you're applying to, the socioeconomic context of the students and the surrounding community, and the discipline-specific and institutional issues the school may be facing, followed by the judicious use of concrete detail from your background research in your materials. Time consuming, to be sure, and no guarantee of success, but it is (I think) a useful way to put your finger a bit on the scale of possibility that you'll make headway in the process.
      • 3/1 All good advice, and it seems that all of this is should be considered required of an applicant at this point. But you're right to point out that it's no guarantee of success, often precisely because of the prejudice that's mentioned below.
    • 3/1 I think I can cencel my Netflix and watch the drama here instead. From the search committee and the hiring department's perspective, what they look for is somone who's qualified to teach and/or research (depending on the type of the school) but also avoid someone who will immidiately look for another job and leave in, say, less than 5 years. So "too qualified" is not only a emotional response (e.g., "I don't like them because they'll disrespect me.") but more often is a way to have a lasting employment.
    • 3/1: Regarding the hiring committee's perspective: this kind of snap judgment is a form of discrimination that ought to be called out. There is no way to tell just by looking at a candidate's CV how long they will stay in a given position. The assumption that more qualified candidates will just move on is not justifiable or excusable, nor is it even an accurate presumption, given how tough it is to get a job in this market. Mobility between schools is not what the previous generation knew. It's remarkable that this predjudice is still considered permissibile in this field at the same moment that so many others are being actively confronted.
      • 3/1 (3) That this way of thinking persists is indeed remarkable. It requires a lot of contorted reasoning to conclude that a candidate will absolutely move on to a hypothetical "better" job that doesn't currently exist and most likely won't in the future. 
      • 3/4: "There is no way to tell just by looking at a candidate's CV how long they will stay in a given position." Actually, there is: Search committees could seriously consider a long term adjunct, who has managed to stay very productive in the field, and has amassed a substantial amount of teaching experience. I've been at this for 10 years (I was tied to my location for the first 5 years after I finished my degree) and if I were to receive a TT track offer, there is probably no way that I would leave it. 
        • 3/4 (2) Hypothetically true, but it sidesteps the problem. Does years of post-graduation adjunct teaching experience actually serve as a successful counterweight to a committee's bias towards a lengthy so-called "elite" professional CV ("productive in the field")? The fact that we need to consider this a counterweight in the first place demonstrates what a problem this way of thinking is.
        • Teaching is only one part of my argument. Being productive in the field is the other, and this second part is key. Someone who has been able to secure commissions (often from the same ensembles that are hired by the "elite" schools to perform the works of their students), win grants, be invited as a guest lecturer, in addition to extensive teaching experience should be given serious consideration. 
        • 3/4 (3) A few years ago, I was a VAP who sat in on the composition area's deliberation of graduate student applications. Of the three comp faculty members, one spent time looking at transcripts ("Ah, he made a C in counterpoint!?!"), one pored over scores, and one sat back with closed eyes listening to submitted works ("Yes, I think this composer has an ear to work with."). That experience, as well as the entirety of the comments on this site, taught me that people have dramatically varying opinions of how to best judge candidates. So it is with search committees.
          • 3/11 Sounds like none of these faculty members were wondering aloud about whether prospective students secretly think that they're "too good" for their institution, or why their CVs make them "highly suspect". It's not the same thing.
      • 3/25 I've been thinking about this conversation for a while. It's often impossible to properly judge/determine the motives of people and prudence often requires not to attack people on the basis of their decisions in such circumstances. On the other hand, to naively trust that everyone always makes a rational, ethical decision about everything is going too far. Do your best, but why beat yourself or someone else up when you fail, or try to come up with some overarching reason that may or may not fit a particular situation? Life can be good anyways. 

FSU-Theory assistant prof. (moved from Theory Only section)[]

  • Whoa, this is remarkably quick. Any details?
  • The person chairing the search is the kind of person that gets things done.
  • 11/28Yes, very true. However, committees can be as slow as their slowest member and this most likely

represents efficient team work as well.

 RUTGERS-theory (Moved from "theory only")[]

  • 12/25: Any post-Skype activity?
  • 01/20: Any news? I really hope this search doesn't get cancelled again!
  • 1/27: We'll have to wait and see what's going on.... If I'm not mistaken, last cycle's search had different preferred research areas than this one, which looks for a pedagogy focus if I remember correctly.

Sewanee: The University of the South[]

  • (12/30) This position asks for audio recordings, but audio recordings can't be loaded into the online application. I emailed the fachire email with a question, but got an out-of-office message. Has anyone else run into this?
  • 1/1 I uploaded a PDF with links to scores and audio files.
  • 12/30 here: From fachire- "it is perfectly fine for you to submit links to streaming locations."

Shenandoah Conservatory[]

  • According to this wiki, Shenandoah began reviewing applications for a Lecturer position in music theory & musicianship in April. The position is no longer listed. Was this job converted into the 2-year teaching fellowship?

Taylor University[]

  • 1/2 "Applicants must confess a personal commitment to Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord." I will confess my personal and undying commitment to anyone or anything on this turgid job market.
  • 1/2 (Re: Comment above) In doing so you would join a long tradition, dating back centuries, of musicians who undergo career-induced religious conversions.  Please be advised, though, that American evangelicals excel at sniffing out interlopers who would breach their communities.
  • 1/3 I think that stating that you believe in something that you do not believe is equivalent to lying on your resume / cover letter. It's one thing to "tailor" (pun intended) your cover letter slightly and highlight your more relevant qualifications for the specific requirements of the job, and a very different thing to claim that you have qualifications that you do not have, which--if caught--would be a risk of academic dishonesty and dismissal. IF these private organizations want an applicant pool that is committed to Jesus, then that's what they want, whether you like it or not. As an atheist, I have had a great pleasure interacting with very devout Christian colleagues in the discipline (and look forward to seeing them again at SMT etc. etc.) The only place for lenience here seems to me to be if you're a Christian believer and you've not been to church service and Bible study EVERY single week during grad school, but have missed 15% of the "scheduled sessions" of this curriculum. Bottom line: Don't lie on your resume. Don't lie on your cover letter. Just present yourself in the best possible light based on facts, not alternative facts. Period. You don't want to get the job and then have somebody dig out your past Facebook messages in favor of the Flying Spaghetti Monster (or whatever) and then be dismissed after relocating.
    • Also, for your edification, From Wikipedia on Taylor University (retrieved Jan. 3, 2019):
    • "Students, faculty and staff are required to sign the 'Life Together Covenant' (LTC) upon joining the University. Community members pledge to adhere to certain standards of conduct and refrain from certain behaviors, including social dancing (excepting marriages taking place off of school property and choreographed or folk dance), premarital sex, homosexuality, smoking, and the consumption of alcohol, with the intention of strengthening the community as a whole. Students cannot register for classes or housing unless they have signed the LTC pledge each year. The LTC is viewed as not only a covenant, but as a binding contract as well. Penalties for not adhering to the LTC range from 'citizenship probation' to expulsion from the university. In 2013 the dancing rule was tweaked to allow officially sanctioned school dances. The Life Together Covenant covers activities and behaviors not only on the Taylor campus, but off-campus as well. The purpose is to strengthen the Christian community and to maintain a sense of maturity and accountability. Chapel services are held three times a week, from 10:00 to 10:50 a.m. on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Services generally follow a modern nontraditional Christian theme. Chapel attendance is expected but attendance is on the honor system. In spite of this, chapel is nearly always well attended."
  • 1/3 (2). 1/3 (1) makes a great point, but I love 1/2 (2)'s idea. I want to be the Mendelssohn of Taylor University!
  • 1/3 (1 again) I appreciate the fact that we have apparently not lost our collective sense of humor in these challenging professional times. However, if Taylor University's search committee is reading this, they should be extra suspicious that some applicants are not in good Faith. Without judgment for a moment, it seems to me that most academics have no problem with homosexuality, premarital sex, smoking, dancing, and alcohol, and indeed might have very serious conscientious problems with working at an institution that has a problem with these and prohibits them. To be judgmental, furious, and righteous (from my perspective) for a moment, I definitely wouldn't want to work in an anti-gay institution. On a practical level, every minute spent here / spent in applying for jobs that one is not qualified for (including due to lack of commitment to Christian faith under a certain definition) is a minute not spent on doing something productive (like working on a resubmission of an article / applying for a composer opportunity / applying to a job that would consider someone like you) or just relaxing or doing something nice for oneself, including the pleasures forbidden by Taylor University and similar institutions.
  • 1/4 It's all fun & games until you realize that institutions like Taylor tend to foster a culture that is aesthetically restrictive. If your religion and aesthetics don't match theirs already, you'll be giving up your religious and your musical freedom. I can imagine a fake religious conversion, but compromising your aesthetics?
  • 1/19 I think part of being a good artist is standing up for yourself and what you think. I never would give up an important part of myself for a mere job. Taylor University or Wheaton probably wouldn't hire me because of my beliefs, but experience has taught me that I can still respect these people while gratefully being free to do my own thing some place else, academic job or not. Human dignity is important.
  • 2/23 Thank you for these supportive statements. Standing up for yourself and what you think is also important for music scholars.

Wiki Counter[]

  • Check all that apply

I am a theorist: 18

I am a composer: 25

I am a little of both (theorist/composer): 12

I am a musicologist with strong theoretical leanings: 1

I am a computer music scientist: 1

I am currently in a TT position: 15

I am currently in a renewable track non-tenure-track position: 6

I am currently in a VAP/Lecturer position: 9

I am currently a Postdoctoral Fellow and on the market:

I am currently adjuncting and on the market: 13

I am a recent (3 years or less) PhD and on the market: 8

I am a recent (3 years or less) DMA and on the market: 7

I am a no-longer-so-recent PhD and on the market: 9

I am a no-longer-so-recent DMA and on the market: 5

I was denied tenure and am back on the market:

I am a senior tenured scholar looking for a better position: 

I am a tenured or tenure-track professor whose position has been cut:

I am an adjunct professor whose position has been cut:

I am working outside of the academy: 6

I am ABD and on the market: 14

I am ABD and no longer on the market:

I am not on the market but am an interested observer: 6

I am a member of a search committee: 1

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