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Post by Lucky Jim on Mar 22, 2009 10:05:41 GMT -5
Suppose you accepted a temporary job. Suppose that about two weeks after you accepted the position you were unexpectedly offered your dream tt-job. What would you do? What are one’s legal/moral obligations in this situation?
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Post by coover on Mar 22, 2009 17:15:21 GMT -5
Your question is too easy. You may take any TT job over any VAP or adjunct position. No reasonable academic will hold it against a fellow academic for reneging in order to move from nonpermanent to (presumptively) permanent employment. The real trouble emerges when the job you're reneging on is of the same (or higher) general category than the one you're moving to. (Ditching one VAP for another, one TT for another, or even one TT for a VAP.). Then your careerism will not be looked on with sympathy, and rightly so.
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Post by dubious on Mar 22, 2009 19:46:22 GMT -5
No question - take the TT job. I made the mistake last year of doing the "ethical" thing and keeping the VAP job I signed on to and declining 3 TT campus visit offers after the fact, one of which would have been a good pick. But since I felt an obligation to the VAP since I did sign on, I declined the campus visits. And then every day this year on the job market I kicked my ass for not at least trying for those TT jobs. The market was so bad this year that I feared that I wouldn't land anything and then be out of a job next year. And then I feared that I would be out of a job the year after since the projections are bad for next year's market. So my advice is to think of yourself first in these bad times - take the TT job. I know that that may be ethically sketchy advice, but there it is.
Your real worry is whether you actually signed a written contract with the VAP school. If you break it, they could sue you, even if the chances are really low that they will. There would be zillions of philosophers lined up to replace you, so it is not like they would have trouble finding a replacement.
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Post by lawstudent on Mar 22, 2009 21:15:09 GMT -5
The school will almost certainly not sue you; or if they do they'll lose. Beyond the fact that it is expensive to sue, it is a standard part of contract law that the victimized party is required to mitigate the breach of contract if they can do so with reasonable eefort. Given that they could easily find highly qualified people, any attempt on their part to mitigate will certainly be successful. The *most* they could sue you for are reasonable costs of mitigation i.e. the cost of putting an ad on the online JFP + the cost of conducting phone interviews (I assume they did not do flyouts for just a VAP).
RE the moral question, I'm not an ethicist but put yourself in their shoes. A potential VAP prof. bails because s/he found a TT job in a brutal market. Would you hold it against her? I certainly would not.
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Post by la guest on Mar 24, 2009 10:26:36 GMT -5
Don't even think twice! You take the TT-job.
Seriously, this is your life. If the people at the institution where you accepted the VAP give you a hard time, you shrug it off. Be nice, but shrug it off.
This is a no-brainer. (I'm a tenured prof just off an exhausting search; and shame on me if I ever made a candidate feel bad for making such an obviously correct decision for himself.)
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Post by Lucky Jim on Mar 25, 2009 18:21:40 GMT -5
Thanks, all, for your helpful feedback.
Out of curiosity, what do you think about actively seeking a tt-job after accepting a temp-job. E.g., going on a campus interview or even applying for additional jobs? Do you think that one has an obligation to say anything to anyone about one’s situation? (e.g., tell the people who are flying you out that you are already committed somewhere else? Or tell the prospective temp-employer that one might bail out if one gets something else?)
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Post by dubious on Mar 25, 2009 20:11:48 GMT -5
Uh...didn't you already get your dream TT job offer? What did you decide to do? What makes you curious about this other scenario?
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Post by braaaaains on Mar 25, 2009 22:32:43 GMT -5
You have a job as a temp. You are offered a full-time job with full benefits. Nobody would expect you to turn that down so you could stay on with the temp job "just to be nice." You're not talking about leaving in the middle of a semester, or even a school year, right? Take the TT job, no question about it. They can find another VAP.
I think it is assumed that VAPs are actively looking for TT jobs. Who has as their goal moving from one VAP to another? As long as your job search doesn't interfere with your performing your actual job duties, it's nobody's business.
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