Employment Survey Results

Vol. 41, No. 4, October 2012
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by Greg Macklem

As has been done for the past 40 years, the History of Science Society collected data on recent job searches in the history of science in order to detect and highlight trends in hiring practices in the field. Initially utilized to highlight gender disparities in the job market, the survey has undergone numerous changes and there has been some desire to expand its scope to include other underrepresented and marginalized groups (see Jacqueline Wernimont's analysis of the 2009-10 employment survey in the January 2011 HSS Newsletter here). As everyone is painfully aware, the job market in history of science has been very small for many years, and 2011 was no exception. The small sample size does, of course, require that any "trends" identified below be interpreted cautiously.

In an attempt both to increase the employer-response rate and to make data collection easier, the 2011 employment survey was carried out as part of the American Historical Association's larger survey, which is summarized in the January 2012 Perspectives on History (the online version of the article can be read here). Unfortunately, the higher response rate did not materialize as we had hoped, and the available data, as mentioned, is thin. Furthermore, we were unable to get some of the additional data that Prof. Wernimont had previously indicated might be useful.

We received responses on only ten positions: six for tenure-track assistant professorships, and four fellowships. Of the six tenure-track positions, five were replacements of former or current faculty and one was a new position. There were no responses regarding any contingent faculty searches. All ten of the positions were successfully filled, and of those who expressed an opinion, all of those surveyed indicated satisfaction with their respective applicant pools.

It should perhaps be of little surprise that most of these searches received fairly large numbers of applications. The tenure-track positions averaged over 80 applicants, with a range of 21 to 150 submissions. For those positions for which gender data was provided the percentage of women in the applicant pools varied quite a bit, from roughly 25% up to 60%. The fellowships were less competitive, but still received as many as 47 applications.

Regarding gender, of the six assistant professorships, four positions were filled by women and two by men. Of the four fellowships, three were awarded to women. As previous surveys have indicated, data on minority hiring has generally been scarce, and this survey carried no such data at all for these positions. I would echo Prof. Wernimont's concern about the transparency of the hiring process where ethnicity and race, as well as other populations, are concerned.

As a final note, I would recommend reading the end of Prof. Wernimont's summary of the 2009-2010 survey, as she highlights several important concerns regarding the utility and importance of the job survey. I would also suggest that the changing job market and the growing awareness of alternative career paths for historians of science should be reflected in the aims and design of the job survey. In January of 2011, Prof. Wernimont wrote that "a comprehensive overhaul is long overdue and this is something that must involve the broad HSS community if the survey is to continue to have relevance and illuminating power." It was hoped that partnering with the AHA would satisfy some of those needs, especially the need to improve the response rates, but that hope has dimmed. And nearly two years later, the need to assess what job opportunities there are for historians of science has only become more urgent.

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Employment Survey Results

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