Off the List

Bardiac, over here, asks an interesting question: is there anywhere you'd refuse to teach for moral or political reasons?

This is a question close to my heart just now, as mr. delagar is ABD, and I have always sworn to him that when he gets his Ph.D. I will (scout's honor) become the trailing spouse and follow him to his job. (He has, for the past 15 years, followed me around the country, after all.)

So we're looking at places he might apply, and taking places off the list. Both of us can do this, it turns out.

We take places off the list for moral and political reasons -- I won't consider taking jobs in South Carolina, for instance, or Texas, and Mississippi is right out -- as well as environmental and financial reasons: mr. delagar won't consider jobs in Alaska or Idaho or Wyoming, and I hold that jobs in the East would be impossible, we'd never make a living. (He argues otherwise, so those aren't off the list yet.)

My students frequently won't consider any place that isn't Arkansas -- even any place that isn't within fifty miles of Fort Smith. If it's not here, it's off the list.

So I'm wondering -- when people say they can't get jobs in the Academy, do they mean they can't get jobs on their list?