Helping Doctoral Students Rethink the Tenure Track

Rutgers alumna (Ph.D. cultural anthropology) coaches clients on careers outside of academic teaching and research

'Every year more than 40,000 people earn doctorates. The year I graduated, there were maybe 30 positions available (nationwide) in my field.'

 

– Fatimah Williams Castro

The number of scholars pursing doctoral degrees is rising. And the number of university fellowships and faculty positions is declining. So what are the odds that all doctoral recipients have a future in academia?

It doesn’t take a Ph.D. to answer that question.

But if it's time to recalibrate your post-doctorate career plan it doesn’t hurt having someone with Ph.D. credentials  like Fatimah Williams Castro to answer your questions.

Castro, who earned her doctoral degree in cultural anthropology from Rutgers University in 2011, speaks, writes and coaches on career planning and professional development for Ph.D. job seekers.

In 2013 she founded Beyond the Tenure Track, a career consultancy that supports graduate students, post doctorates and faculty as they explore and transition to careers outside of academic teaching and research.

Castro, 34, is the author of Top 45 Nonacademic Careers for PhDs, and her scholarly articles have been published in Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Anthropology and Latin American Perspectives. She also is a contributor to the online publication of The Chronicle of Higher Education.

Based on statistics from the National Science Foundation, Castro’s business caters to a growing, yet underserved group. Doctorates awarded by American universities increased by 3.5 percent in 2013, according to NSF. However, the number of newly minted Ph.D.s with a job or postdoctoral position fell by more than 6 percent to 62.7 percent in 2013 – the lowest in at least a dozen years.

Despite the increasingly daunting data, Castro said pressure to stay the course in academia is still great for doctoral candidates.

“I can’t overstate this real expectation of your faculty members and your advisors – who are shepherding you through this eight-, nine-, 10-year process – to place you in a faculty position,” said the New Brunswick resident. “That’s traditionally what the degree is made for; to further that knowledge they are gaining, teach it to others and further their own research.”

A generation ago, that career trajectory was practically a given for Ph.D.s, Castro said, but the academic job pool has dried significantly in the last two decades. The recession only fueled the trend, with a stale job market inspiring graduates to further their education and funding cuts forcing colleges to do more with less.

“Every year more than 40,000 people earn doctorates,” she said. “The year I graduated, there were maybe 30 positions available (nationwide) in my field.”

One of those coveted positions was awarded to Castro: the Consortium for Faculty Diversity Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of Richmond. But Castro traded her golden ticket for a management position at the nonprofit New Brunswick Tomorrow.

“I felt like that was my moment to try something new,” she said. “There are just things I love to do that academic positions would not allow me to do: collaboration, public speaking, working on teams to get things done and to see more immediate outcomes of that work.”

The calls from graduate students started a year later. Their first question: “Why did you leave?” was followed by: “How did you do it?”

All the interest in her transition from academia led Castro to familiar territory: research. She researched what college career services were providing to prepare graduate students for the workforce and spoke with HR professionals to understand hiring processes and the skill sets necessary to attract employers outside of academia.

She launched Beyond the Tenure Track’s interactive programs in February 2014, offering online group sessions to graduate students, posting videos on social media sites, speaking at colleges and universities and working one-on-one with clients. A year later, she has 30 clients, a mailing list of 400 and was hired as the part-time associate director at the University of Pennsylvania Career Services, where she is a career adviser to graduate students and postdoctoral fellows in science, math, engineering, social sciences, design and humanities.

Castro sees Beyond the Tenure track as a tool that university career services and graduate schools can implement to guide graduate students on a broad scale.

She’s made inroads at UPenn, CUNY and The University of Tennessee. And some in higher education privately acknowledge the need to better prepare Ph.D.s for expanded career pathways because many will not go into tenure track positions. But, Castro said, many still are standoffish toward anyone suggesting their flock consider options outside of academia.

The politics and the pressure to remain in academia is so palpable, many of Castro’s clients request anonymity.

“People who straddle both academic and non-academic worlds are considered ‘flaky,’ ‘uncommitted’ and unsure of what they want, although they possess the skills and expertise to contribute to many job sectors,” said one Castro’s clients who wishes to remain anonymous because she is still working at the university level while exploring other ways to apply her English doctorate.  “If my name is attached to my views at this point, I could be pigeon-holed and lose out on possible job opportunities, both within and outside of academia.”

Castro’s program provided a space for her to reexamine her career and gave her the confidence to consider the assets she brings to the employment table.

“Fatimah Williams Castro’s Options for Success Program helped me immensely. I didn’t realize how much of myself I had suppressed in order to obtain a Ph.D,” said the client who is now utilizing her undergraduate degree to manage a science lab on a research university campus.  “I learned how to reframe, explain and translate my background and skills into a language that employers outside of academia could understand.  It also made me much more clear on what I do want and don’t want in my professional life.”

Who are Castro’s typical clients? They range from graduate students who can’t find an adjunct position to untenured faculty to faculty looking to expand their career with consulting or speaking engagements. Many are frustrated. Some are angry that after all the time and money they invested in their education, they feel no closer to achieving their dreams.

“The anger is from feeling they were sold a career pathway that may not be as viable as what it once was,” Castro said. “But I want to channel that energy into ‘What do I want to do?’ and ‘Who do I want to be?’ because I can be that.”

For media inquiries, contact Carla Cantor at 848-932-0555 or ccantor@ucm.rutgers.edu