Discusses Recommendation No. 20 of the report of the Commission on Academic Tenure headed by W. Rea Keast and John Macy. It recommends establishing ratios for tenured and nontenured faculty. (TO)

Discusses the lack of security in the English teaching profession and encourages college English departments to be humane in their hiring practices. (DD)

Presents an introduction to three articles that follow in this issue asking academics to explain how they got jobs. Notes that the articles were written one year after their authors had got tenure-track jobs. Describes the strategies and tactics that made these searches a success. (SG)

Contains an annotated bibliography of papers, surveys, and reports on tenure in the teaching of English at the college level. (RB)

Describes differences between community colleges and four-year colleges and explores issues involved in staffing community colleges; stresses that individuals should choose jobs that provide personal satisfaction. (GW)

Presents a discussion one year after the author received a tenure-track job. Describes the strategies and tactics that made his search a success. Addresses the period after graduate students have defended their thesis and are searching for a full-time academic job. Notes that the time after his defense was chaotic, bewildering, but invaluable for…

Two discussions explore the issue of part-time and temporary teaching appointments in colleges. The first discusses the negative impact these assignments have on the discipline of English. The second recognizes that these appointments are here to stay and offers suggestions for making a bad situation productive. (HTH)

Considers how decisions about curriculum, hiring, and institutional policies have changed due to increasing regulatory, legal, and financial pressures conflicting with ever-magnifying and multiplying sense of need. Identifies three dominant models of institutional governance--models that represent different emphases and that, for the purposes of…

Presents a discussion one year after the author received a tenure-track job and describes the strategies and tactics that made her search a success. Discusses certain strategies that candidates conducting a local search can employ to maximize their credentials and opportunities. (SG)

Discusses the current understandings of the term and position "professional," the intentions of the college English curriculum, and the career opportunities for the English major. (TO)

Four contributors (1) discuss a rationale that would enable English departments to maintain a balance between publishing and perishing, (2) argue for the small colleges relinquishing their publish-or-perish policies, (3) examine the benefits of writing for alternative audiences, and (4) explore limitations on scholarly publishing. (AEA)

Offers statistics on employment placement as reported by PhD-granting English departments in United States universities. Discusses the departments surveyed and number of doctoral recipients reported, their placement in and outside higher education, numbers of PhDs awarded to men and women and their placement, numbers and placements of minorities,…

Suggests some operating principles for job candidates for academic appointments. Notes that candidates should receive offers in writing. Lists compensation, perquisites, fringe benefits, and other conditions that candidates should negotiate. (RS)

Describes the strategies and tactics that made the author's search for a tenure-track job in English a success. Describes the tenure-track position at precisely the kind of institution where faculty members were supposedly not open to the kind of work he does: the English Department at Drew University, essentially a small liberal arts college in…

Notes the efforts of some universities to lure top professors from other universities. Reveals problems, such as raising the needed money and funding eminent scholars, and considers some positive aspects of the trend, such as the creation of new courses and emphases, and the clarification of priorities of a department. (EL)