RETRENCHING. The Economist visits the economics job meetings.

On the debit side, much attention focused on the fact that the AEA-run website, where potential employers of PhD economists advertise their positions, has added a new section called "Suspended or Cancelled Listings". Here it is noted that a "non-trivial economic downturn" has forced some employers to suspend or cancel job searches. As of December 28th, a week before the actual interviews, 84 previously advertised searches had been called off, representing 5% of the number of jobs available by the reckoning of the director of the AEA, John Siegfried.

Even before the cancellations, the 2,881 new job listings this year were lower than last year's 2,914. Still, as Mr Siegfried pointed out, this is many more than the roughly 1,000 new PhDs that emerge from American universities in an average year. So why the worries?

Several reasons, I think. First, academic jobs at universities with graduate programmes, the top choice of most new PhDs, are about a third of the total, at 1,034 (and this includes positions for experienced academics). Then there is the fact that quite a few of the nearly 3,000 jobs listed were posted prior to September, a large fraction of which are not suited for people fresh out of school. So the supply of jobs may not be as plentiful as the aggregate numbers collated by the AEA suggest.

But a bigger part of the answer may be that some suspect that more universities are going through the motions without the intention of actually hiring anyone. In that sense, the cancelled listings may represent the tip of a larger iceberg. I overheard a professor from a leading west-coast university saying that while his department was interviewing many candidates, someone hoping to actually get hired would have to "walk on water".

On the positive side, several people made the point that those doing the hiring are, after all, economists. Faced with the possibility of oversupply in the market, some see a golden opportunity to hire the kind of high-flier who would normally be out of their reach. Less prestigious institutions with a bit of cash to spare have in some cases increased the number of advertised positions after seeing the list of cancelled searches (specific instances I heard about included Montana State, as well as a lot of European universities looking to reverse recent brain drain). Some business schools see an opportunity to hire bright finance PhDs they would normally lose to Wall Street. So the adjustment, such as it is, is likely to be on the "quality" margin—people settling for smaller schools, or locations they might not initially have considered.

It's not as dismal as the Modern Language Association.

But over the next few weeks/months, it will be interesting to see how this all plays out. This site, which is a wiki run for and by job market candidates, is pretty informative, and it’ll be fascinating to see how many schools that have conducted interviews actually pull the trigger. If the pessimists have it right, there are going to be a lot fewer universities in this category than in normal years.

But it is depressing to have to let our candidates know that our search is now among the "suspended or cancelled" even though the Association hasn't picked this up yet.

LET'S PRETEND THERE'S NO SUCH THING AS AN AFFIRMATIVE ACTION ASTERISK.

Inside Higher Ed "resident scholar" Shaun Harper assures us as much.  "Jay-Z, Kamala Harris and Professors of Color Aren’t DEI Hires."  As you'd expect at the house organ for all wokeness, all the time, inside what passes for higher education, he goes straight to the motive questioning.  "There is no such thing as a DEI hire in U.S. higher education or any other industry. It is a racist notion."

Now it might be, as he asserts, that Sean "Jay-Z" Carter produces some pretty good Super Bowl halftime shows.  It's not to us oldsters that the producers pitch those things, so I don't have a rock in this house.

TRYING TIMES.

The Chicago Tribune offers a round-up of the troubles in the Northern Illinois University bureaucracy coinciding with a presidential search.

Wanted: A visionary leader to oversee the state's third-largest public campus, where two high-ranking administrators recently resigned in disgrace, eight employees face felony theft charges and the campus police chief — once hailed a hero for his swift response to a 2008 shooting spree that left six people dead — has been placed on leave amid questions about concealed evidence in a rape case. Budget currently includes more than $15,000 per week for suspended employees who are still being paid.

Headquarters suggests that on balance, the university presidency is an opportunity.

The university's academic strengths include business, education and art. It has one of the 10 largest teacher preparation programs in the country, and its art school produces more art teachers than any other school in the state. Unlike the state's other regional public universities, NIU also has a law school.

It's those amenities and rankings that will attract the next president and prospective students, despite the recent troubles, NIU officials said.

"There are so many great things going on at NIU right now. I think the good far outweighs the challenges," said Kathryn Buettner, vice president for university relations.

Among those challenges: fifty-year-old classroom buildings with leaking roofs, worn floor tile, and insufficient dry-erase markers for the whiteboards that were installed, at great expense, along with space-consuming computer consoles that contribute to the Power Pointlessness of too many classes.

It is true that great things are going on, including a steel band about to celebrate its fortieth anniversary. Today's concert included settings of "The Star-Spangled Banner", "In the Mood", and "In the Hall of the Mountain King" for solo or ensemble steel pan.  A recording of a Wind Ensemble performance might be more suitable to tonight's story, though.

The business of the university goes on, administrative side-show or not.

In recent months, however, the school has endured a series of scandals that have seemingly overshadowed its brightest spots. There's been nearly as much news coverage of the administrative turmoil as of the university's football team, which recently won its third consecutive Mid-American Conference West championship.

None of the scandals has involved NIU's academic departments, meaning the vast majority of students and faculty have seen no disruption to their daily routines on campus or in their classrooms. But faculty senate President Alan Rosenbaum said he worries that the negative publicity — which many professors consider overblown — could have a detrimental effect on efforts to recruit.

"There are some problems, but the university is confronting them and doing its best to correct them," Rosenbaum said.

Yes, if "doing its best" includes cancelling the few faculty searches that the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences saw fit to authorize for this year. The College has a substantial cohort of new hires in the past year or two, as many of the long-time faculty members have reached retirement age. The size of the faculty continues to fall.

Todd Latham, president of the university's Supportive Professional Staff Council, said the negative publicity — along with the state's serious financial troubles and broken pension system — are a constant concern among NIU employees. He worries that the problems, particularly at the state level, could make the university less attractive to potential president candidates.

"We want to compete on a national level," he said. "Do we feel the public eye heavily upon us? Yes, we do. We know the general public is looking at us, and they should. As employees, we need to do our best to help attract the best students, faculty and now university president as possible."

Developing.

RUNNING EXTRA.  The alumni members of the presidential search committee respond.

We seek a leader with vision, courage, entrepreneurial spirit and good Midwestern common sense who will be attracted to a great public university located in one of the most vibrant, dynamic regions of the state and nation, a university that has seen tremendous growth in key areas.

Greater Chicago may continue to thrive, Democratic politicians or not, public universities or not.  Take care of the supply of dry-erase markers, and the faculty and the honor students will take care of themselves.

WHAT IT'S COME TO. We're not looking at reserve passenger screening capacity at an overstretched airport. Those metal detectors are set up on the numbers I used to line up along for roll call in gym class at Milwaukee Hamilton. The photo illustrates a school-wide weapons scan in progress. I understand that each high school has at least one such search each academic year.

Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel photo by Rick Wood.

The weapons scans appear to be a necessary evil in a school system dealing with increasingly violent students and parents.

"It's not just in high schools," said Dorothy Johnson, a teacher at Wisconsin Avenue Elementary School. "If our kids don't feel safe in elementary school, how are they going to feel safe in middle or high school?"

Last school year, police arrived at Keefe Avenue Elementary School after hearing that a mother, Andreya Jones, had stormed a classroom in search of a teacher's assistant. She was reportedly angry that her son's teachers kept calling her.

The assistant tried to back up as Jones approached. But Jones drew closer and started punching. When a school official arrived, he saw the teachers assistant flying across the room toward a wall, literally airborne. Jones later pleaded no
contest to battery and was convicted.

The attack exemplified what some teachers and staff describe as a new brazenness. A student sexually assaulted a teacher in front of a full classroom at Madison High School, touching her indecently on top of her desk. Two young women fought outside Bradley Tech High School with babies in their arms. Two sisters, both middle school students, even attacked a police officer.

The author of the article offers an editorial comment that appears to rule some approaches to misbehavior in school out of bounds.

The case of middle school sisters who attacked a police officer last year shows that there are no simple solutions.

One of the sisters was suspended at least eight times at the school prior to the assault, according to court records. In the 2 1/2 years before the incident, she had attended four different schools.

This fall, she enrolled at another MPS school. In November, she was arrested for shoplifting a second time. A witness to the incident said the girl seemed to have "no regard to penalties."

At the time of that arrest, the girl, then 15, was about three months pregnant.

The father, in his 20s, left Milwaukee for Chicago to avoid charges of statutory rape, according to court documents.

Last month, the young girl was due to became a mother.

At one time, the Milwaukee Public Schools attempted to inculcate the habits of the middle class in students. Whether students were on collegiate or vocational tracks (yes, those things existed) all understood that responsible Milwaukeeans would have the discipline to be up at six in order to catch a bus to be able to punch in by seven if that's when the shift started, as well as the discipline to study after school. That inculcation started well before junior high (the middle schools are a relatively recent change.) The habits of the middle class are particularly valuable to people currently living in straitened circumstances. The way I heard it from my parents years ago, it went "there's no shame in being poor, but be ashamed to be messy." Perhaps that lesson ought come even before reading or figuring or self-esteem.

ENGINEER DISTRACTION. A search of telephone company records confirms that a Los Angeles commuter train engineer was exchanging text messages (with some young train enthusiasts?) just before the fatal collision with a freight train. Unauthorized use of cell phones by train crews is not unknown on Metrolink.

A Metrolink official said an engineer on another commuter rail train was suspended for sending text messages about the time of the crash.

The Federal Railroad Administration has set hand and seal to a ukase banning train crews from using (personal?) cell phones.

In issuing the order, the Railroad Administration noted that rail workers are increasingly using cell phones and other electronic devices that could distract them at critical moments during railroad operations.

It noted six train accidents, four of them resulting in deaths, between 2000 and 2006 in which cell phone use was involved.

"These obviously unsafe practices reflect the powerful influence of pervasive use of cell phones and other electronic and electrical devices," the report said.

While most railroads prohibit or restrict use of electronic devices by rail workers on duty, the Railroad Administration said the rules have not proved effective in preventing train accidents.

Wireless phones provide an extra means of communication among engineers, conductors and dispatchers in the event of a radio failure, but Metrolink decided to prohibit cell phones outright in the locomotive cabin, said Keith Millhouse, vice chairman of the regional rail system's board of director.

That last paragraph illustrates the trade-off of any regulation. Railroad radios do break, locomotives go on the road with bad-order radios, the dispatcher is sometimes distracted. I can think of at least one trip on which I monitored an engineer using a cell phone to raise a dispatcher. (That it was an expected Amtrak arrival ON TIME at an interlocking suggests indiscipline somewhere.)

As an aside, note what happens when a reporter doesn't understand railroads. Locomotive cabin?

Safety is of the first importance in the discharge of duty.

"For me, it just gives me heart palpitations thinking about it," said Tim Smith, a former train engineer and California chairman of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen, the union that represented Sanchez. "The last thing you want to be doing is something that takes your eyes off the road."

True enough. On the other hand, a relatively routine job, which a scheduled passenger train is, does not present the day-to-day different challenges that keep the adrenaline flowing, and make crew exhaustion a problem during the busy season. Years ago, I went with some friends exploring the Chicago Transit Authority. On the Ravenswood, we had the opportunity to observe a motorman who could operate the train and read the Sun-Times (in its convenient tabloid format) at the same time. That's a clear breach of the rules, but our man had no doubt developed some muscle memory in repeated trips on the line to be able to get away with it.

THE INCREMENTAL COST OF VISIBILITY. The Northern Star follows up its report on nepotism with an analysis of a $154K overdraft on the Independence Bowl. That's right, overdraft. You read it here first.

Late Friday afternoon email? Those faculty who are checking e-mail then are probably corresponding with co-authors, dealing with editors (as referee or as writer) or otherwise working on their research. That's a population not particularly likely to be impressed with a bowl opportunity (which is likely to cost the university money once the travel and entertainment expenses for senior administrators and boosters is figured in) as the outcome of a game on a school night.

I was right about the travel and entertainment expenses, as we will see. What I did not anticipate is the bonus-trading that goes on to get a conference an additional bid. For supposedly amateur sports, that have nothing to do with money, the potential for side payments is great.

The 2008-2009 college football postseason produced a record 34 bowl games. When the regular season came to an end 72 teams were left as bowl eligible. This meant four bowl eligible teams would not enter the postseason.

Of these 72 teams, 13 teams had a 6-6 record, the minimum record to reach the postseason. One of these 13 teams was NIU.

The Huskies had hoped to win their final game against Navy, as this would have given them a 7-5 record. A 7-5 record would have improved NIU’s chances at a bowl game, as the NCAA restructured the manner in which at-large bids are selected a few years ago. Bowl games are forced to take a team with a winning record for an at-large slot, before inviting a 6-6 team. This meant teams like Western Michigan, with a 9-3 record, had to be selected for an at-large bid before a 6-6 team like Notre Dame.

And it was Western Michigan that proved to be the crucial piece of the puzzle to get NIU into a bowl game.

The Broncos ultimately accepted an invitation to the Texas Bowl in Houston. At first, however, WMU wanted to accept an invitation to the Independence Bowl. The motivation, it seemed, was money.

“The net payout in Shreveport was $330,000. In Houston it was $270,000,” said MAC commissioner Rick Chryst. “Prior to any bowl invitations we wanted to take the money part off the table. I think we felt Shreveport was the best opportunity for Northern.”

NIU agreed with Chryst, feeling that if it was going to make it to the postseason, it would be in Shreveport.

“Rick [Chryst], and his staff, we relied on them to be really the kind of conference voice for us as the negotiations occurred,” said NIU Athletic Director Jeff Compher. “We feel like the more teams from our conference that go the better. We didn’t want to be the one sitting out, but we didn’t want anyone else sitting out.”

In order to convince WMU to accept the invitation to Houston, NIU agreed to give some of its revenue from the Independence Bowl to WMU. This amount was finalized at $29,380.

The university achieved some economies in lodging and transportation. (Heck, compared to Our President asking his cabinet to find one-ten-thousandth of his annual deficit in their budgets, our athletic department overachieves.) In part, the economies reflect demand for the tickets.

The athletic department originally estimated $13,109.25 for lodging for students at the game. This was reduced to $6,435.72, but only because the department originally expected to bring two busses of students to the game, yet was only able to fill one bus.

A trip to Shreveport, at Christmas. Wonder why. No private jet charters.

The Northern Star also discovers that the Athletic Department is more generous to friends of the program than Our President is to the Queen of England. (Maybe not. Boosters didn't get autographed copies of Bill Baker's -- the professor, not the announcer -- work on Wilkie Collins.)

When participating in the Poinsettia Bowl, NIU went over this limit [on the value of presents], as it gave players, coaches, donors and friends team gifts. In 2006 these gifts were an iPod Nano, an iPod Nano case, men’s/women’s watches, sweatshirt and ski cap. These gifts cost $12,000.

At the Independence Bowl, all members of the NIU football team received a Timely Watch Co. watch, New Era cap and Trek mountain bike.

Meanwhile, some colleagues and I went recruiting at the job meetings and nobody in authority has thanked us for making the effort in a search that was later suspended, let alone given us an I-pod. They did reimburse us for our rapid transit rides to the airport.

The interview elicits an infelicitous comment from athletic director Jeff Compher that concedes a positional arms race is in progress.

When examining a bowl game, Compher said the financial matters cannot illuminate the entire situation.

“You can’t explain it with the bottom line,” Compher said. “It’s an investment. If you want to compete at this level you have to be willing to invest.”

According to Compher, a bowl game helps add spirit to the campus, create the college experience, helps in recruiting future players and coaches, and adds to the student-athlete experience.

That means it ultimately pays off on the bottom line. The problem, however, is that the rent-seeking inherent in recruiting, enhancing the experience, competing at that level, and the likely strategic complementarity of Northern Illinois's new weight room with Ohio's implies the investments will never be cost-effective. The sponsors of bowl games, who do face hard budget constraints, are likely to recognize this before the athletic departments do.

[Deputy athletic director Glen] Krupica said the main change that needs to be made for the future is the athletic department needs to be more prepared from a marketing standpoint. In order to achieve this, however, he said NIU needs to know that it will be participating in the postseason earlier than it did this year.

“Hopefully we’re in a little bit better position that we’ll know we’re playing a bowl game,” Krupica said. “Our fans will then be conditioned to going to a game and to be able to float out there are some pre-sale opportunities where people can lock into tickets regardless where we go. And then in early November we lay out five options.”

Krupica and Compher see this as one of the key ways of selling more of the required allotted tickets when accepting an invitation to a bowl game. By achieving this, the pair hopes the university will no longer have to use a majority of the payout to purchase the allotted tickets.

We owe the overdraft to ourselves. Chortle.

“Maybe someday you’re not worried about defraying, but maximizing your payout,” Krupica said. “I think that’s when you start getting at the point bringing five, six, 7,000 people to a game.”

In order do to this, however, Compher said a mind set has to be created at NIU where fans expect the Huskies to go to a bowl game. This may only be the case, however, if NIU can produce better regular season records in the future. [Vice President of Finance and Facilities Eddie] Williams [USNR] said he believes there will be a reduction in bowl games in the future, as games are now struggling to find sponsors.

“I am concerned about bowls in general. There may be too many of them. There may not be enough sponsors,” Williams said. “When you are in that situation the payouts may be smaller for the non-large bowls.”

You think? Chick-fil-A's ability to finance a bowl depends on the willingness of people to buy sandwiches. (That ability apparently exceeded the ability of the peach cartel). Athletic departments can increase student fees. (It might be fun to require universities to disclose all the fees the same way a settlement statement for a real estate closing does. The difference is that those closing fees bear some relation to problems that arise in the course of a transaction. Many of our students treat the athletic fee as a sunk cost, a point that sports columnists for the Northern Star never seem to grasp when they exhort their classmates to attend the games they're paying for.)

A SAFE SPACE TO PLAY WITH UNSAFE IDEAS?

An Associated Press background story on the latest manifestations of liberating tolerance opens,

Generations of Americans have held firm to a version of free speech that makes room for even the vilest of views. It’s girded by a belief that the good ideas rise above the bad, that no one should be punished for voicing an idea — except in rare cases where the idea could lead directly to illegal action.

Today, that idea faces competition more forceful and vehement than it has seen for a century.

On college campuses, a newer version of free speech is emerging as young generations redraw the line where expression crosses into harm. There’s a wave of students who have no tolerance for speech that marginalizes. They draw lines around language that leads to damage, either psychological or physical. Their judgments weigh the Constitution but also incorporate histories of privilege and oppression.

“We believe in a diverse set of thoughts," says Kaleb Autman, a Black student at the University of Wisconsin whose group is demanding a zero-tolerance policy on hate speech. “But when your thought is predicated on the subjugation of me or my people, or to a generalized people, then we have problems."

That's "harm" in the current nonsensical meaning, understood as "unpleasant thoughts" rather than fisticuffs, or a panel blowing off an airplane.

NOT THIS VALUE PROPOSITION EITHER?

With the basketball tournaments under way, the continuing quest for fans in the seats in the women's game pivots to ... diversity.  "Women's basketball needs faces of future to be Black."  We're not dwelling on the memory-holing of great players in the era before the NCAA became the governing body this time, although that remains germane.  "Giving the talented players a chance to compete is one thing; giving spectators a reason to attend the games or watch them play on television is quite another.  The story of women's basketball is one combining Horatio Alger and Technocratic Impulses."  It's not as if the sport hasn't appealed to the Woke in as many ways as the most creative of promoters can conceive.