doctorate required (or equivalent professional experience)
some more unsolicited advice for DMAs entering the academic job market
As promised, this week I wanted to rant about unpack something I've been thinking about for many, many years and is now applicable to my teaching at FSU: how to prepare students for academic job market in 2024. By “prepare,” I don't really mean teaching them how to assemble professional materials (writing a CV and cover letter, assembling sample recordings and teaching material, preparing for interviews). Instead, I mean showing them where the market is, who is getting the jobs, what trends and types of professional profiles are becoming relevant; and what kinds of artist-faculty administrators are increasingly seeking; it's a kind of general analytical savvy that helps one not feel totally blind going into any given situation.
My perspectives are, of course, my own and attuned to a specific subset of academic jobs (applied performance) in a specific geographical area (US/Canada) at a specific time (2020s). I'm also a big fan of the idea of fit when it comes to applying for jobs—as in, not all jobs are created equal and some are really not the right fit for where a person is in their career (too high profile or not enough). However, I do think there are some glaring gaps in how we talk to our students about their professional development, so allow me to offer some of my own thoughts.
unsurprisingly, credentialism has backfired
One of my biggest problems with the increasingly ubiquitous 3-year DMA timeline is that it doesn't give students enough time to build a portfolio while they are in school and have support from an institution. Some programs are even slimming down their treatise requirements, probably under the logic that students have more time to purpose professional opportunities if they don't have to “waste” their time writing.
Frankly, music programs that allow doctoral students to graduate within 2-3 years are contributing to this nasty thing called degree inflation, in which a DMA becomes just another credential to add to one's qualifications for a job. The outcome? A glut of underemployed doctoral students with impaired mental health.
Of course, the students aren't ever the ones to blame. Between degree inflation, budget cuts that slash full-time faculty positions, and an increasingly growing and highly competitive applicant pool, securing a teaching job seems too futile to be worthwhile. That's where applying one's knowledge/experience from their DMA to diverse professional contexts comes in, and I'm a fan of that, too. However, the implication is that doctoral students are getting a robust, well-rounded pre-professional educational experience, which I find difficult to imagine how that can happen in under 3 years.
Where is there time to do research or build a portfolio?!
As my friends in engineering said last night, graduate students actually exist to be indentured servants to do the menial work that faculty don't want to deal with. In addition to finishing coursework, practicing, and performing, those who hold assistantships are tasked with 10-20 hours/week of additional work. Those who don't have assistantships either have to be independently wealthy or supported by parents, take out loans, and/or take gigs to pay their monthly expenses. In a way, it makes sense for DMA students to want to get their piece of paper as quickly as possible because the current system is fucked up.
As faculty, modifying this system is slow because it involves a consensus of values and re-hauling curriculum. I'd love for the trend to go in the direction of longer funding for DMA students (like 4-5 years) to develop professional projects while they have access to university facilities and resources, but that means professors have to choose between quality and quantity. If we choose quality, then the longer investment (so to speak) really has to pay off to persuade other institutions to do the same.
In the meantime, here's some trite advice for students thinking about balancing their professional development with being in school:
Unless you have other reasons for choosing a particular school or teacher, find a teacher who is invested in you (i.e., you are a top choice candidate for them) and has a history of investing in past students’ professional development.
Find a teacher who is clear about not exploiting you, i.e., you don't exist to make their life easier, and they will have your back when it comes to making room for your professional development.
Again, unless you have very specific reasons for choosing a school/teacher, find a teacher who has a vibrant presence in their field, even if it's not the specific subset of field you're wanting to pursue. If you are a performer, study with someone who is active and/or relevant outside the university because that affects their scope of mentorship. At the doctoral level, you shouldn't be just trying to get better at what you do (do a performance diploma instead). You should be thinking about how to place your skills in context of the profession.
Debt sucks. Don't get a DMA unless you're getting paid to do it. In other fields, PhD students are always guaranteed funding, and it's criminal that music programs think it's OK to accept doctoral applicants and ask them to pay tuition. That's the sound of credentialism backfiring.
“equivalent professional experience”
Here's an excerpt of a recent job description for a full-time, tenure-track teaching position at a major university music program in North America:
Applicants should also have demonstrated experience in community engagement, university-level teaching (of solo, chamber, and/or orchestral repertoires), and graduate supervision, as well as a commitment to advancing diversity, equity, and inclusion. A doctorate is required but in exceptional circumstances, an equivalent combination of qualifications and significant high-profile professional experience may be considered.
The person who won the job is in their early 30s and has an exciting national performing career, but to my knowledge, they don't actually have a lot of the listed qualifications on their resume. They have never held a formal university teaching position—even adjunct—nor would they experience supervising graduate students, and they do not have a doctorate.
Here's another for a .5 lecturer position, also at a major school:
In addition to [redacted] instruction, key responsibilities are coaching chamber music, leading occasional orchestral sectionals, organizing yearly [redacted] auditions, and dedicated participation in juries, student recitals, and recruitment. Additional duties include advising doctoral students in academic aspects of their degree such as lecture recitals, final papers and oral exams; mentoring students toward a professional career; and service on departmental committees.
The person who won this job is in their early 20s (!) with an even more exciting international career. While they definitely have the musical qualifications, maybe a bit of teaching experience, and some recruiting power, they almost certainly would not be able to advise doctoral students, mentor students, and engage in service, given that they themselves were barely out of a master's degree when they won the job.
My point is not to shit on these people, since they are fabulous musicians who will do an equally fabulous job teaching their students. It's obvious that they stood out in the applicant pool to the search committees. So, that's my question: Who's standing out in the applicant pool?
Applied performance is a weird field in higher ed, in the sense that music schools function more like vocational programs than research-based academic ones. Conservatories know that they're vocational schools dressed up as accredited 4-year undergraduate programs, e.g., I've heard from more than one person that the academic classes at Juilliard are laughable. For conservatories and conservatory-like music programs, the people who stand out then are the cream of the crop: principal players of major orchestras, well-established or rising-star soloists, other people with prestigious industry cred.
Music programs at universities have been different because of credentialism, which meant that university jobs during a certain period became accessible to people who had terminal degrees. Ostensibly, the point was that a DMA developed one's skills and sensibilities as a researcher and pedagogue, and while it was important to demonstrate activity in industry, one had to also prove oneself in the ivory tower. However, with neoliberal economics, post-COVID decline in enrollment, and cuts to arts funding, adjunct and other part-time positions (disguised as “artist faculty,” “teaching artist,” “lecturer/senior lecturer”) are on the rise as administrators look for ways to trim the fat, making university teaching positions in performance as susceptible to market/industry forces as conservatories have always been.
That's where “equivalent professional experience” comes in—evident in the two examples I mentioned at the beginning. Nowadays, I'm noticing that it's increasingly relevant for young applicants to bring a robust professional portfolio, rather than one with more academic credentials (e.g., conferences, papers), since it implies that the applicant has relevance in the field and can represent the university in industry spaces. While I'm not a fan of the current neoliberal turn in the university, I am a fan of research/activity that has a clear impact on the public or at least is interested in connecting with a public, as a way of deterring the usual self-indulgent navel-gazing that has given the university a bad rap.
So, what's my advice to performance students?
If you manage to find time in your busy schedules, pursue professional opportunities in which you get to meet and work with people outside of the university. Sure, getting selected to play at your instrument's national conference feels really gratifying and does indicate that you are “good enough.” But, conferences are notoriously expensive and cannibalistic, in the sense that everyone there is trying to get the same opportunities from each other (and the network is extremely incestuous). If validation is what you're seeking, you're better off applying to a competitive arts residency program to network with other professionals outside your field. Or, if you want to save money, you could use that time to work on your EPK and develop an original project to shop around to concert presenters who will 👏🏼 pay 👏🏼 you.
As someone who is still going through this process even though I'm not a student anymore, I wish I done more of this while I was in school. It took me 3 years out of my DMA to land a full-time job; while that timeline might have more to do with the fact that TT jobs aren't extremely scarce for harpists, I don't think I could have won my current position without leaning hard on my professional performance activities—most of which weren't university-related. Conferences aren't inherently bad; many of them can be useful. But, if you look at your CV and all you see are conferences or university/school-affiliated work, consider diversifying your portfolio.
I've told my entrepreneurship students: don't use your teachers’ careers as models for your future success, since they landed opportunities in a very different cultural and economic landscape. Ask yourself: Who are the forward-thinking people in my field right now? Who are the new superstars? Who's winning jobs? What do they have in common?
Factors of success are highly nuanced and variable, so the point is not to copy those individuals, but to understand what a respectable industry portfolio looks like and then create your own. For some—as is now the case with harp teaching jobs—that often means something straightforward like winning an orchestra job (or subbing with top orchestras) or having an active performing career after winning a major competition. For others, it may require thinking about where to find your blue ocean, i.e., to get creative what and how you present your work to different audiences.
just do it
This year, I'm trying a bunch of new things, including becoming a peer professional development mentor for a harp colleague of mine and starting a new music project that I'll talk more about next time. My philosophy as a teacher and a performer is to not be afraid of the inevitable learning curve that comes with doing something for the first time. The more you put yourself in unknown spaces, the more expansive your world becomes, and ultimately, that expansiveness of experiences—proof of connections to and recognition by a myriad of communities—is what defines a great artist portfolio.
✨ Noël Éternel 🎅🏼 🎄
This week's Corner of Wondrous and Powerful:
👂🏼 Cassie Wieland and Vicky Chow's album HYMN
📖 Re-reading The Undercommons by Stefano Harvey and Fred Moten to prepare for Moten visiting FSU next month!!
👀 Re-watching Silicon Valley because it's always hilarious and ironic to watch while I'm preparing slides for my entrepreneurship class. The writers take so many punches at self-help/motivational sentiments that are part of entrepreneurship culture, including this one:
“What those in dying business sectors call failure, we in tech know to be PRE-GREATNESS.”