The Plight of Academic 'Marginals'

Major universities employ many Ph.D.s in academically marginal positions. Neither postdocs nor full-fledged faculty, these scientists populate an academic never-never land made possible by the availability of research support and made miserable by the difficulty of obtaining such support and by their ambiguous status in the institution. These scientists have such titles as "assistant research anatomist" or search associate," although some carry the usual academic titles along with the unusual responsibility of raising a sizable portion of their salaries from outside sources. The scientists I have interviewed in this status are quite capable by most measures. They have doctorates from very good departments, research support from NIH or NSF, several publications and good citation records. For example, the first-authored publications of one young marginal scientist in my sample had been cited more than 60 times according to the 1985 Science Citation Index. Thus, although the positions are marginal to academia (and, perhaps, also to the social organization of science), the researchers themselves are not marginal to the intellectual enterprise of science. Yet the conditions of employment in such positions are often undesirable. The salaries are usually lower than academic salaries and the positions may not provide full-time pay, even if they demand full-time work. There is also little job security: employment usually ends when a project ends. Moreover, marginals have limited academic rights, such as claims on laboratory and office space or access to seed money and equipment. Often they are not allowed to submit independent research proposals, but are permitted to work only on projects initiated by faculty members. In relations with the larger scientific community, including funding agencies, occupants of marginal positions are at a competitive disadvantage because they do not have an established laboratory. These scientists are acutely aware of their precarious status. One said, "I had a feeling when I was looking for a job that I could have fallen off the bottom. . . . it's a big jump from a postdoc to getting a job. That's the crunch time. Are people staying forever as postdocs? That must be pretty weird." He is grateful to have a tenure-track job, although he must provide 75 percent of his salary from research grants—a demand not without its stresses. "Because I'm in this position I have a longer row to hoe than most. I have to be more perfect." Another whose continued employment depends on outside research funds complained about the "lottery" of obtaining federal research support. For her, "doing good work and working very hard are necessary but not sufficient conditions for getting your grant renewed" and remaining employed as a scientist. Perhaps the most diabolical liability of such positions is their effect on the young scientists' access to collaborators. In the highly collaborative life sciences, where research projects often require the diverse skills of several scientists, marginals are caught in a double bind. Despite serious impediments to collaboration, they need to work with others in order to be productive. But the productive collaborations they form with colleagues at their current institutions are undone when they succeed in obtaining regular jobs elsewhere. One scientist who had been in such a position says the difficulties are "partly institutional, partly self-perception; you're so busy scrambling on your own research that you don't have time to take a breath. One of the nice things about getting this [tenure-track] job was that! knew I really didn't have to do anything for two years... and I really exploited that dead time to work on [his next research project with a colleague in another department]... But I don't think you have that kind of prerogative, psychologically or positionally, to set up those things quite as intensely if you don't have a [tenure-track] job. For one thing, you may not be there long enough. The guy you're collaborating with has an investment too—[if] we're both going to be here five years [then] it's worth our while to sink some time into it. If you're a postdoc or an overgrown postdoc, everybody knows you're trying to get your ass out of there—you should be trying to get your ass out of there." Yet if a marginal scientist succeeds in forming such attachments and they become an integral part of his or her work, then the cost of moving to another institution increases substantially. One scientist who succeeded in finding collaborators has put down scientific roots so deep that the cost of moving would be very high. Her next research project depends on a difficult assay and the use of nuclear magnetic resonance imaging—both available in her current institution. To leave would mean abandoning the line of research because virtually no other institution could provide these resources. Also, since the project uses human subjects, it would be difficult to conduct from a distance. In research areas that require a diversity of skills, collaborative work is essential both for science and for the scientist's career. Yet for marginals, such relationships are difficult to form and costly to dissolve. Marginal positions can be regarded as an extension of the scientific apprenticeship system, which includes graduate education and postdoctoral fellowships. But the marginal jobs fall far short of an ideal scientific apprenticeship. For example, such positions may not provide the freedom and resources necessary to become properly apprenticed as a scientist. The constraints, measured in terms of both budget and autonomy, are often so great that the appropriate skills are not acquired. Similarly, some marginals have suggested that the socialization is not adequate—that the right rules are not taught—thus, failing at another function of the apprenticeship. Moreover, these positions may not lead to secure employment. More serious questions arise from the traditional use of apprenticeships to restrict the flow and shape the characteristics of new workers entering a craft. In science the hiring of people into marginal positions (and their dismissal from them) may be less formal than hiring into faculty slots, and may carry fewer formal protections of individuals' rights. And whatever the formal guidelines for the treatment of such people on the job, it is very likely that informal norms and practices have substantial power. These marginal positions are a variant of the postdoctoral fellowship, itself a hybrid of the German privatdocent and the English fellowship, in which scientists acquire skills, prove themselves, and seek faculty openings. Marginal positions are a product of federal research support and, as changes in support are used as an instrument of science policy, these scientists' careers are redirected, perhaps in unintended and undesirable ways. In effect, we may be restructuring the academic career in a self-defeating fashion, removing some autonomy and many of the rewards from the early career while building in a career change at the wrong time. Or we may be restructuring academia, adding a new layer of professional whose rights and status are now under negotiation. A sensible science policy requires a better understanding of such marginal positions and their role in U.S. science and education. Policy Questions The plight of today's academic marginals in science raises at least four central questions for policy-makers. 1. How many marginals are there? Do the numbers vary from one research area to another and, if so, why? What are these scientists' contributions to science and how do they differ from those of their colleagues in more traditional positions? Do they serve academia by providing a reserve army of scientists to accommodate academic growth? If not, then are these positions merely a way station on the road to nonacademic employment or even nonscientific employment? 2. Is the number of marginal positions growing? Do we want it to grow and, if so, in what ways? Given stable or declining enrollments, universities may be reluctant to increase the number of tenure-track faculty. But at the same time research priorities may create a demand for doctoral scientists in some fields, causing universities to hire scientists in these nonfaculty ranks when there is a need, then firing them when the demand is met. Although this practice may benefit universities, it may not be good for science or for the scientists involved. 3. Given the answers to the above, should universities take steps to limit employment in marginal positions? Should the positions be institutionalized as an alternative career path? Should funding agencies support people in such positions? 4. Are we restructuring the academic research environment in a way that trains young scientists to be incapable of independent work or that provides powerful incentives for acquiring narrow technical skills? Perhaps the difficulties mentioned here (and documented in recurrent NAS studies of postdocs and in the work of Carlos Kruytbosch 20 years ago) reflect a temporary adjustment to changing academic and scientific circumstances. If so, we need only wait for the storm to pass. More likely, the answers to these policy questions will reveal major changes in the structure of science. The idealized academic scientific career with its autonomy, diverse duties, small research groups of students and postdocs, and the security of tenure may have given ground to a new scientific career that brings greater accountability to employers and sponsors, concentration on research, larger working groups, and no guarantee of permanent employment. Perhaps these changes will bring about the efficient redeployment of resources. But perhaps they signal a serious waste of talent and a restructuring of scientific work that demand action. Hackett is assistant professor in the department of science and technology studies, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY 12180-3590. This article is adapted from a talk at the 1987 annual meeting of the AAAS in Chicago.

The Plight of Academic 'Marginals'

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