Sweet god I'm old

There's a column in, um, tomorrow's Chronicle (? I write this on Wednesday, about Thursday's column - I guess I'm far enough behind in time zones that it's tomorrow already...) by a woman (pseudonym Kathryn Ryan) writing about how as a "mid-career academic," she's looking for a senior administrative position. She's been been "tenure-track faculty...program director, assistant provost, and dean," and would like to keep moving up.

The kicker?

She's 36.

36, people.

I wish her well, and this post isn't intended to be my usual snark about the Chronicle's First Person columns. It's just an interesting question - basically, what should a college dean (or provost, or maybe even president) look like? Here I'm assuming that she's talking about a college dean, as in, head of academic affairs, rather than, say, dean of residence life (if there is such a thing). I could be wrong about this - that's just what "dean" seems to mean in this context - a head honcho of some kind, not just one of the assistant honchos. She makes a really important point:

As long as those doing the hiring continue to privilege candidates who fit a preconceived image of a senior administrator -- white, male, and graying -- then we can be sure that our institutions will miss the opportunity to create a new generation of leaders who will be needed sooner rather than later.

I think this is absolutely true. And yet, I have a hard time wrapping my mind around working somewhere with a 36-year-old dean. (For the record: I'm 38, and not remotely mid-career, though I'll allow that most people are more mid-career than I am by this point. Or at least, I may be "mid-career," but not "mid-level," or is that middle management? But anyway.)

In theory, I'm all about judging based on the background/experience, not someone's age. In practice, it appears I've run up against a prejudgment about what I'd expect of someone in such a position. Which is, honestly, someone older than 36. (Not sure what my cutoff would be. 40, maybe? Not like that's not completely arbitrary or anything. Check back with me in three years about whether I feel the same way...)

Partly, I'm just curious how someone gets to be mid-career, senior administrator material, by 36. I know I'm a turtle in this whole academic race, but she also specifies that she has a degree in the humanities, not generally a speedy degree-earning area. Was she in her first job by, say, 26? I suppose it's possible if she went straight from undergrad (though five years would be fast) (although I shouldn't rule out the possibility that she finished college early, too).

In any case, starting a t-t job at 26 would give her 10 years experience working full-time in academia. If that's the case, did she earn tenure? Presumably, yes, to put her in a position to become a senior administrator - most administrators I know of come from tenured positions - though I suppose not necessarily. (Obviously Dean Dad proves the latter, given he came from an institution without tenure!) If she earned tenure, that's six more years, so that would put her at 32. (Unless again she was fast-tracked and went up early. Can't rule that out.)

Say she earned tenure at 32 - that would give her 4 years in administrative positions prior to this column. That seems awfully little time to reach the senior level. Of course, one could be a program director before earning tenure, too, so she may have started that administrative path early (which is what she says herself: "I realized fairly early -- while still in graduate school, in fact -- that the career I really wanted was an administrative one. Opportunities arose and I took them, perhaps mistakenly believing that my track record would ultimately matter more than the time it took me to reach a senior post"). And again, she may have chosen not to go after tenure, which would potentially start her full-time administrative work even earlier in her career.

The other thing to consider is that I'm a little hazy on what "senior level administration" really actually means (see comments on "dean" above). Someone at Former College who has a Ph.D. in the humanities is now a vice-president of Various Stuff there (not faculty stuff or student stuff, in case that makes a difference). This person graduated from college three years before me. So it's certainly possible to be a young, senior administrator, whatever actually counts as senior. (Okay, three years older than me may not be that young, but just shut up, 'kay? This old lady's getting cranky!)

I lay out this timeline not at all to cast doubt on Kathryn Ryan's path to administration or to question her qualifications. This post isn't meant to ask: do you think Kathryn Ryan is ridiculous for assuming she could/should get a deanship at 36? or to say, How on earth could she do that, she must be making it up! Rather, I'm asking an honest question here: what is the general path to senior administration? Is Ryan's trajectory as unusual according to the norms of administrative culture as it seems to me? Would you, personally, support the candidacy of a dean who was 36? Why or why not? Support your answer with examples from the readings. (Oh, wait, it's not an exam question - sorry!) Do you think your response has anything to do with whether you're older/younger than this person? (This is me asking myself if I'd have felt differently about this if I were currently 28 instead of 38.)

And if you think me even raising this question smacks of ageism - well, feel free to tell me that, too.

Comments

[Richard Scott Nokes]

Wasn't Condi Rice in her 30s when she became provost at Stanford?

[Prisca]

If you feel old think how I feel. I'm 42 and haven't finished my Ph.D yet. 36 and mid-career sounds cheeky and adolescent to me. That's of course, because I changed careers at her age!

[slnoonanj]

If you think that's bad, at my former university, they hired a new president who was 34! Yes - the PRESIDENT. Totally made me feel like an underachiever.

[redneckprof]

I'm 41 and I'm older than my Dean. It's nice having someone young and energetic, who can relate to people. Just a few years ago this place was run by old farts. It's a refreshing change.

[hypatia cade]

The Chronicle also just published an article that showed that the average age of getting your first NIH R01 grant (the bread and butter of science) is 42.

So how can you be past mid career before getting your first grant?

[(Not that) Paris]

In reading the article, I wonder about the language of the rejection: stating a desire for more years of experience is an easy way to diffuse rejection that may have ultimately been grounded in any number of other factors, ranging from legitimate issues such as leadership style to more problematic ones like sexism. I see it akin to the statement many ABD job candidates hear, where their lack of PhD is the grounds for rejection. It enables the interviewers to put the rejection in the most positive light possible: most ABDs will secure that PhD very soon and less experienced administrators will inevitably gain more experience.

And regarding the meaning of being mid-career: I would call anyone 3 years out from their PhD mid-career. Most have carried out a substantial research project to completion (even if the results are not published or in a publishable form) and have experience in the other elements of an academic career - teaching, admin, and such. If all you've done since college is academia, I think 36 is a reasonable age to be considered mid-career, but I don't know how the hell she managed to spend significant amounts of time doing everything she's done.

[Ancarett]

I can't wait to see Dean Dad's perspective on this one!

One of my grad school peers was dean before getting tenure at a small regional college in the states, so the move into administration can happen early. That said, I think that something interesting to consider in this case might be that it's harder to break back into academic administration from the outside than move up from within.

I wonder what Ryan's references look like given the messy situation one might expect from the allusions to her previous administrative experience. I also wonder if she's getting overlooked because people assume she's in a sweet spot in her technology firm and not really serious. (Job search committees are weird -- that's a subject for a whole 'nother post someday.)

Age might be a factor but, seriously, I've never seen that come up in any hirings I've been involved with except from the opposite perspective (there was resistance to considering someone for a t-t hire who was within a few years of 65 while mandatory retirement was still in force and while that's wrong, on the other hand I can understand the department fearing the consequences of having to compete for a new position in two years' time).

Of course, this overlooks the fact that, after reading her column, I now feel really, really, really old and underachieving at forty-four years of age. Put me out to pasture, NK, and throw me a few carrots, wouldya?

[marcelle proust]

My few regular readers may recall I was on a committee to hire a Lord/Lady High Mucky-Muck last year. An immediate red flag for me in this essay is that she doesn't say what academic rank she attained. Associate? She's exceptionally young for full, and it is not a good idea to have someone below the rank of full making decisions that affect full professors. If the position is one outside the chain of promotion/tenure command, then that's a bit less important, but I still think that experience *at all academic levels* is important for a dean or provost. In fact, I think experience as department chair is important for a dean or provost, and "program director" might or might not be equivalent to chair. The whole essay seems disingenuous to me: crying agism when there is a genuine lack of experience.

[Dance]

At an R1, I've been told that to be Dean, in charge of tenure decisions, etc, you really need to have two books and get full professor before switching to admin, or else the faculty won't respect you. Somewhere in the two-book process, obviously, you've probably served as program head, dept chair, etc.

For instance, at my R1, the Dean of Liberal Arts and Sciences is an external hire, who is normally brought in with tenure and promised to be able to go back to teaching in the dept after serving as dean. So that requires quite a research profile to get the dept to accept that.

I find this quite confusing also. I think I've been told that Vice-Presidents for XYZ and Vice-Provosts for ABC are actually lower ranking jobs than Dean of the College.

[withneedle]

Mildly off-topic, and I'm not quite sure how to phrase the question, but are there places in academia where administration is pretty much _the_ career path? I work in an area of high tech that seems to draw its executives and senior management from one or two big firms; these firms tend to hire people fairly early in their careers and fast-track them towards various kinds of management. Most of the young-ish senior managers I've worked for or with came from someplace like that, so I'm wondering if (a) an academic equivalent exists, and (b) Ryan came from someplace like that?

[Mano]

Whether we give credence to her claim that age was the main issue here, or not, I am so, so, SO glad someone in this world has at least put the issue out there about ageism in academia (against young people, not just older people). I find it to be a rampant problem in situations where lack of experience is not a justifiable reason to devalue someone.

[New Kid on the Hallway]

It's funny, because Mano, this isn't at all meant to say that people in academia don't treat younger people like crap sometimes just because they're young, but I do have a harder time seeing ageism against the young as an issue as opposed to ageism against the old - primarily because the young will stop being young at some point but the old won't. It is bullshit to hold youth against someone if experience isn't the issue, but I've seen far more cases of the shiny new young people being hailed as stars than the other way around. But I realize I shouldn't say that because I haven't experienced it, it's not a problem.

Academia is weird in that respect - you have the whole image of, say, the mathematician (aren't they often said to have done their best work by the time they're 35? Like, it's all about youthful genius), versus something like history, where age is (sort of) valued because the idea is you just keep learning more to be able to create a fuller picture of history. Yet at the same time, I know some of the really top institutions fall over themselves to hire brand-new Ph.D.s from equally prestigious places, who are often very young because the top places push you out the door quickly - it's like if you have the right pedigree (program/advisor), experience is much less of an issue. Maggie May just posted about a grad school colleague who is a year younger than she is (36), and a named full professor at one of the nation's top research universities, with a list of publications as long as her arm. That seems to win you more kudos that doing the same thing at 50. So in that respect, youth seems to rule. (Of course, you have to write the books and articles and all that crap...)

Withneedle, that's a really good question, and I don't know. My sense is that if one follows that path, it's generally not a route that leads to being a chief academic officer kind of dean or provost, someone who's over faculty - for the reasons that marcelle and Dance name (which were in my head last night but I couldn't articulate), that such a position ideally requires someone who's reached full professor. My former colleague does stuff involved with fundraising and whatnot, and my sense is that one could become involved in the financial/development side, or the the student affairs side, by fast-tracking into administration early, but one couldn't do that to become a Dean/Provost of a college. Which is what Ryan seems to want to do, though I could be wrong.

Dance and marcelle, thanks so much for articulating that about the full professor thing! marcelle, I really wanted to know what academic rank she'd attained, too.

And Ancarett, yes, I wondered about the messy past, too. I can imagine that when faced with someone who is on the young side for a deanship, with what she describes as a complete mistake of a past deanship, I might wonder if the problem had been that she was not yet quite ready to handle such a position. (Which would doubtless be ageist.) Or, of course, I might just think she had a weak track record!

Paris, interesting point about where mid-career lies. For me, mid-career requires having tenure, but it's not like there's a rulebook where I looked that up - it's just a vague feeling. Granted, one could easily have tenure by 36, of course!

redneckprof - that is definitely an excellent point. I have been at places run by old farts, and non-old farts are a great change! So thanks.

Richard, I didn't know that - although Condi, well, she kinda scares me, which I suspect could be a valuable quality to have as a Dean. ;-)

Again, I don't mean to knock Ryan by raising all these points, it's just that I am just trying to figure out what the norms are in that administrative path (and which norms are useful and which should be done away with!).

[Cathy]

I actually know someone who could have written the piece. She was hired to take a new school within the uni in one direction, and then the president/faculty abruptly decided it was going to go into another and dumped the dean. It was an applied vs. theoretical bait and switch. She was fully qualified and it very much wasn't her fault.

[New Kid on the Hallway]

Cathy, thanks for the example - yes, I can completely believe that someone would come in and dean and it would be disaster through NO fault of their own - it's not an easy job and the bait and switch you describe would suck (and sadly is probably more common than one would like). I don't mean to suggest Ryan *isn't* qualified, I'm just trying to figure out how it works!

[dhawhee]

Danielle Allen at U of Chicago became dean of humanities at age 32. At that point she had two phds (classics and political science)--each diss became an awesome book--and a MacArthur genius award. She is also a goddess, but that is not on her c.v. I agree that Allen and the chronicle first personer seem to be exceptions that prove rules, but the fact that people of all ages can find themselves at all ranks is of one of the things I like about academe. At the very end of his career (and life), Wayne Booth, when introducing Allen to a group of history of rhetoric folks, badgered us all about not having more than one PhD. It was awesome.

[dhawhee]

Danielle Allen at U of Chicago became dean of humanities at age 32. At that point she had two phds (classics and political science)--each diss became an awesome book--and a MacArthur genius award. She is also a goddess, but that is not on her c.v. I agree that Allen and the chronicle first personer seem to be exceptions that prove rules, but the fact that people of all ages can find themselves at all ranks is of one of the things I like about academe. At the very end of his career (and life), Wayne Booth, when introducing Allen to a group of history of rhetoric folks, badgered us all about not having more than one PhD. It was awesome.

[maggiemay]

I was going to mention Danielle Allen at U Chicago too: she's been extraordinarily successful at a very young age. An exception, yes, even an EXCEPTIONAL exception-- but it goes to show that there's a lot of variation in how we get to where we are.

[History Geek]

I wish her the best too, but damn I'm 27 and in my senior year of undergrad still!

Maybe she does have something there with how we're programed to think of College Deans as old, but now that I think of it the Dean of our Honor College isn't all that old, hell he was all over Ireland with us this summer (we were never sure whether to call him Dean suchandsuch or Dr suchandsuch) So maybe 36 and a Dean isn't that hard to wrap my mind around, but Pres of a School at 36?

Well I'd certainly trade her for the one we've got now at my school.

[Notorious Ph.D]

I remember thinking about age as I got close to going on the job market. For my humanities discipline, the golden window to go on the market seems to have been between 30 and 36 -- any younger, and people looked at you like you were a student (and you might actually be younger than many of the grad students); any older, and people wondered what had taken you so long (even if you'd started later in life).

Of course, the trick here is that none of this was based on how old the candidate *was*, but rather how old they were perceived to be. I remember making a conscious decision before interviewing to wear my hair up, and go for the glasses rather than my usual contact lenses.

[Mel]

As others have suggested, I think these things vary tremendously depending on institutional size (small college vs uni vs R1), culture, and self-perception. At my U no Dean would be that young -- because you have to be full prof, and that process requires a certain number of years even for exceptional super geniuses. And the culture at my U expects higher up administrators to be male, and white, and OLD. But it's refreshing to hear about alternatives!

[Jenny F. Scientist]

Seeing how as I'm in the sciences, the average 36-year-old has just finished his/her postdoc.

We do have several deans who are younger than 50. Many of them came from different backgrounds than teaching. It's a bit refreshing.

[Susan]

Withneedle is right, that there are places where administration is a track. But even many of those places will want a senior *academic* administrator to be an active scholar. That is, there is a limit to where you can go without an active "academic" life.

My hunch is that the author of the Chronicle piece would have done better either to stay in a position a few more years, or to make some lateral moves to other institutions. And many many institutions like to promote from within in academic administration. "Oh, we see you run this well, would you like to try doing this?"

[Steven D. Krause]

I think that when it comes to both age and experience in academic work (or just about any other work, frankly), there is a point of diminishing returns. The faculty member with five years in rank has, IMO, a great deal more experience than the faculty member with one year. On the other hand, I think the faculty member with 10 years in rank has less experience than the faculty member with five.

It seems to me that the same is true in general terms with age. Speaking only for myself, I think the life experiences I gained from the time I was 25 until I was 35 were more significant than the ones I gained from 35 until now (I'm 41). And in terms of this particular situation, I just don't think the difference between someone who is 36 and 46 is that significant.

Now, why anyone would want to be a dean at all is a different issue....

[New Kid on the Hallway]

On the other hand, I think the faculty member with 10 years in rank has less experience than the faculty member with five.

By "in rank," do you mean someone who's been an associate for 5 years versus someone who's been an associate for 10? I can kind of buy that, in that individual learning is probably maximized in those five years. (Granted, I don't know many people who've been associates for 5 years by 36, but that doesn't mean they're not out there!) But I wouldn't say the 10 year person has *less* experience, even if I could agree with *no more* *relevant* experience.

Plus, I don't think one's learning/experience is always about the individual but is also about what experiences arise during those 5 or 10 years. If the second half of those 10 years sees a great deal more institutional change than the first 5, for instance, I think that's an example of someone learning more in the 10 years than the 5 (in the sense of learning stuff relevant to being a dean).

It seems to me that the same is true in general terms with age. Speaking only for myself, I think the life experiences I gained from the time I was 25 until I was 35 were more significant than the ones I gained from 35 until now (I'm 41).

Interesting! I completely don't agree, personally, but then, there's been a lot of upheaval in my life in the last 4 years (I'm 38), and I only now begin to feel like I have a sense of what I really want to do with my life. YMMV.

[New Kid on the Hallway]

(Oh, though you're right that there may not be much difference between 36 and 46. I'll let you know when I get to 46. ;-D)