THE CHANGING ACADEMIC MARKET is the inside story and scholarly analysis of a leading sociology department's search, during the mid-1970s, to fill several faculty positions. This was attempted in the middle of the fundamental changes to the U.S. university and college market that began in the late 1960s. That sea change is exposed with candid self-awareness and examined in its practical effects on faculty hiring procedure, treatment of candidates, affirmative action, a shrinking market, professors' relations with each other and their political stances, and recommendations for other academics in various departments who are undergoing a similar recruitment process. A reviewer at the time of its initial publication in hardcover (Harvard's Nathan Glazer) called this book "a unique study ... placed within the context of a wise and subtle analysis of the changes that have taken place in the past decade in the academic market," analyzed for the first time with "care and attention to detail and sound research procedures." Another expert in the field (CUNY's Dorothy Helly) commented that this is "a rich text on a crucial aspect of higher education ... the recruitment process among dramatically increased numbers of Ph.D.'s who include a growing proportion of women and minorities"; she added that the approach used "constituted a radical departure from sole reliance on recommendations from a network of professional colleagues," the usual way of soliciting and selecting candidates. Now part of the new academic library of Quid Pro Books, this book is a classic research study and hallways account of faculty hiring -- of continued value to researchers, teaching applicants, and present faculty hiring committees. The original pagination from the previous hardcover edition is embedded into the text, for continuity and referencing purposes.
About the Author: Neil J. Smelser is a senior university professor at Berkeley and the former chair of its sociology department. Working with Robin Content, he conducted a massive faculty hiring search while conditions of hiring and recruitment were seismically moving nationwide. They tell the story of that search process with introspection-and locate it within the literature about the higher education market.