Art Degrees and Teaching Jobs reflections on the state of the job search by Stephani Stephenson    Stephani Stephenson is an accomplished ceramist and educator. This piece was originally published online in Clay Art June 5, 2000 Here is my take on the M.F.A and Jobs...note: this is an anecdotal and personal view. I don’t pretend to say this is how it is; just this is what I’ve seen, which is a true but very small slice of the big enchilada. I think you have to look at demographics when you look at numbers of MFA’s handed out compared to the number of full time college/community college teaching jobs. First, look at the veneration generation.  I call them that because so many of our venerable ceramists and educators are in this group. Rudy Autio explained it the following way, “A lot of guys, (demographics, remember), went to college on the GI bill after WWII and the Korean War. College was suddenly very accessible  and attractive." Many of these men, like Autio and  Peter Voulkos , took art and pottery courses in college. They graduated just ahead of the baby boomers, who hit college in the mid-late 1960s. During that time, a lot of ceramics departments were opening and expanding like crazy. Pottery classes, along with other liberal arts courses, were wildly popular. Many  respected teachers of that generation say they did not have to search for a teaching job, but were instead recruited. Teachers were needed for burgeoning enrollments and growing art departments. Now, fast forward to the late 1970s, 1980s and the 1990s. Guess what, a lot of the folks who were hired in the 60s and early 70s hung on to their jobs for a long time. In addition, institutions started reducing funding for ceramics and the arts, and cutting department size. They moved toward hiring adjuncts, who often earned less than a teaching graduate student. Many of the elder department heads were not successful in keeping or adding to faculty, even when enrollment remained high. So, those of us on the tail end of the baby boom had a difficult time finding a full time university or community college job. The word was always, (and I sincerely mean no disrespect), you had to wait till someone retired or died to get a job. Now, I KNEW this while getting an MFA,(1990), yet because I loved clay, I believed that I could get a job and I also told myself that , anyway, I was doing it for the love of it and for the knowledge. Throw in a dose of the follow your bliss philosophy, that was quite popular at that time, and there you have it. I believed. I strode, (ha ha) mightily past the warnings. In fact, I actually got a sabbatical position, 11th hour, right after graduation, so I thought, well this isn’t so tough! I worked very hard that year and loved it. It was a one person department however, and there was no possibility of continuing after that year so I moved on. Then I had a medical crisis which cost me a year of recovery and necessitated my working full time immediately thereafter in order to pay off student loans as well as medical bills. I worked full time managing an art store at a university bookstore, still trying to look for teaching jobs and trying to build my own studio to keep up my professional progress. I did the best I could, but later felt I had definitely slipped on to a very slow track as far as ever getting a teaching job. I also felt like I could never quite get ahead of the game with regard to personal promotion and getting into shows. I taught workshops locally for various groups, and kept working and showing. After 3-4 years, I cut my job back to 3/4 time and later to 25 hours a week, and devoted more time to clay. .In 1997 I decided to try in earnest to get a teaching job. I had applied for some positions but never got past the first cut. I scraped money together to go to NCECA. I never made it to CAA. I received weekly postings from the Chronicle of Higher Education. I applied for several positions. In 1997 I received A Montana State Artist Fellowship and possibly because of this, I started getting past the first in the application process. Many of you may not know what is involved in the application process these days. The written applications are complex and lengthy. Some of them are 20 pages with a list of essay questions that will boggle you. No two applications are the same. Once you marshal your slides, complete an application, write a statement of philosophy, acquire transcripts and meet the deadline, you wait. Getting an interview is thrilling because it is likely that 200-400 other people, most of them well qualified, have applied for the same job. After performing at a few interviews, I felt I was qualified to hit the road as a one woman show.( Picture yourself in a formal interview, wearing low heels, nylons and career gear one minute, then whipping on an apron and sitting down to the wheel!) Here is how it can go. You may have separate interviews with the college president and the department head or dean or vice president of the college. You will have to dress for success to meet with these folks, and then you dash off to face a student panel and answer their questions or present your slides. You may then have to turn around and present slides to a faculty panel. Some but not all will be artists: some will be ceramists; some will be English or Psych professors. Some look interested, some are bored out of their gourds the minute you walk into the room. In between two slide shows, you may have to do a demo such as throw a matching set of 3 jars with lids, probably with a 15 minute time limit; then go on to a hand building demo, again, a 15 minute session, hand building, while discussing the state of contemporary ceramics. Next you might be led into a room where there are several sculptures and /or pots, sometimes as many as 40 for you to critique. Some are beginner pots, some are very sophisticated, and some are horrific. Some of the pots might actually be pots or sculptures made by the very head of the program who is sitting right there on the panel. You don’t know for sure. It is difficult to critique them because the people who made them aren’t there, so there is no chance for interaction, so you hear yourself making statements you can’t believe you are making. You want to show off what you know, but god forbid you insult another professor’s pot! Then, finally, the ACTUAL interview, which can be congenial or nerve wracking or any number of things. I even had one that was invigorating and stimulating. It was fantastic. (I didn’t get the job). I had another, at 3PM in 95 degree heat with everyone half asleep. I was nervous and sweating, (I for sure didn’t get the job). You will be asked if in addition to ceramics and ceramic sculpture, you can also teach computer graphics? Metal sculpture? Design?  Drawing? Art Appreciation? Can you also supervise the operation of the gallery? What about photography, can you teach photography? The interviewing panel is made up of generally good folks. Sometimes they are with it, sometimes they are exhausted or, worse yet, the decision has already been made, and the whole thing is a formality they have to go through to meet the standards of affirmative action, or other hiring practices. I would like to think that in some of the interviews I was really considered but in each of the five finalist interviews I landed, the job in each case was given to an insider. I’m not faulting this, as the insider was likely very talented and had probably worked for years as a poorly paid adjunct, just to get the job. I know other cases where the insider will work for years hoping to get a crack at a full time job and then get passed over. I am sure in every case, a very qualified person was hired, and after all there are so many very qualified people. Though part of me felt like a good deal of time and expense had been for naught. I have to say that each interview was truly a learning experience in itself. Even so, after awhile you do get the feeling you are hurling yourself repeatedly into a brick wall. And then there's the fact that you just spent all your egg money on nice clothes for the interview. Truthfully, I could not help but feel crestfallen and rejected at failing to get the job each time. I was plagued by self doubt. The most recent interview I had was last year. It was the worst of all. It shook me up because I actually wondered afterwards if it was just too late for me. It had been so long since last I taught ...THAT was a scary feeling. I realize now that I didn’t know a darn thing about how things really worked when I left school.  I think schools can do a better job in preparing MFA grads. Educate students in what they can do after school. Explore the business of art, teaching, showing, being an entrepreneur and how to survive and succeed in Art World. A grad student’s artistic soul is not so pure that it can’t handle a dose of the real world! Most of us were begging for such classes. Secondly, in most schools, the art department and the art education department are separate. Either you get an art Ed degree with time for one or two semesters of ceramics at most, or you get an MFA or BA, with no room for Ed curricula. I think there should be a little mixing of the two. Most MFA students are never taught how teach. You are just left to figure it out. If you have a good roll model, fantastic, if you don’t, good luck. Yes there are natural teachers. I do think some training in that area would benefit at least some MFA students who want to teach. Finally, my advice would be, go to a school where you will have a strong department and a fantastic individual with a good reputation, within that department. Make your degree and your association with that person, that professor,  that individual  professor and his or her connections ,work for you. My motto in hindsight would be: “Schools don’t hire people, People hire people.” recommended reading "Art and Fear" by David Bayles and Ted Orland. Stephani Stephenson, who , in 2007 is a full time tile maker and architectural ceramist, and who occasionally teaches workshops at her studio . Stephenson, still outside the ivy walls , presented a lecture  on Moorish Tile at the 2007 National Council for Education in the Ceramic Arts.  Her work is featured on her website http://www.revivaltilworks.com