Timeline for When and why did the postdoctoral position originate?
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5 events
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| Apr 21, 2010 at 23:01 | comment | added | Jim Humphreys | @Pete There was an older European tradition followed in the US of having an advisor look out for a position. But at UMass as elsewhere the program has changed and a tenure-track has for decades led to tenure (though earlier reviews have sometimes led people to look elsewhere). The tenure clock remains a problem for recruiting people who have already shown their value, here as elsewhere, since an "early" tenure case gets harsher scrutiny outside the department. | |
| Mar 4, 2010 at 20:09 | comment | added | Michael Greenblatt | @Pete I do agree with you, that this is another factor.. the risks of a bad hire on the tenure track are much greater nowadays, both for the university and the hiree. So everyone wants to play it safe. | |
| Mar 4, 2010 at 19:31 | comment | added | Pete L. Clark | Doing postdocs makes a world of difference to one's mathematical and professional maturity. In my department, we expect to tenure everyone we hire (and do so over 95% of the time). Being an assistant professor is not that different from being tenured -- I teach graduate classes, have thesis students, and so forth. I'm not thrilled that my university's tenure clock has not been adapated to match the increased maturity of its new faculty, but overall my experience as a new professor has been extremely positive, probably much more so than was typical in the pre-postdoctoral days. | |
| Mar 4, 2010 at 19:24 | comment | added | Pete L. Clark | This must be true to some extent, but I think the prevalence of postdocs also reflect the changing cultural expectations that a university has for a fresh assistant professor. The impression that I get from reading biographies of mathematicians is that (say) 50 years ago your advisor would essentially arrange a tenure-track job for you. When you started out, you might still be working on writing up your thesis problem and not have any ideas about research beyond that. Thus not getting tenure at your first job was a lot more common, since they don't have much into who they're hiring. | |
| Mar 4, 2010 at 16:42 | history | answered | Michael Greenblatt | CC BY-SA 2.5 |