Date: Thu, 12 Jun 1997 19:11:03 -0400
From: Thomas F Brown <tombrown@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu>
Subject: Re: ratings
To: socgrad@csf.colorado.edu
Message-id: <97Jun12.191114edt.1682-1@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu>
Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT


The past three junior-level hires at a "T20" department that I am familiar
with have all been women. Two of them are minorities. I'm guessing that was 
as much of a factor as their phds. Given the middle-aged whitemaleness of the
tenured faculty, it probably deserved to be a consideration. Only one
had a "top 20" phd, and she was also the only one with a publication
record, which reinforces my guess about the demographic motivation
behind the other two hires. Since I wasn't in the loop for that round of
interviews I can't assess their competition, which is why I can only
guess. The two unlisted, unpublished hires are from name departments 
that are probably not that far from making the T20 list.

The only other recent grad I recall being interviewed was from
a "top 3" school. He didn't get an offer, although he was an excellent
candidate and I would hope he got hired somewhere. In that particular
round, the ethnic woman was also clearly the best choice on the
basis of her record, which worked out nicely. She had graduated
6 ot 7 years earlier than him and been working at another school, 
which made it not a fair comparison, though. 

I should add that one of the unlisted, unpublished recent hires 
also has some pretty strong personal network connections not related 
to her work. I'm sure that didn't hurt.