I'll echo what Katie and the several academics whose emails were cited at the beginning of the episode said about universities being as "woke" in Florida, Western NC, and other stereotypically not-woke regions as anywhere else. The reason is that academic hiring is done nationally. Traditionally, if you're a junior academic looking for a…
I'll echo what Katie and the several academics whose emails were cited at the beginning of the episode said about universities being as "woke" in Florida, Western NC, and other stereotypically not-woke regions as anywhere else. The reason is that academic hiring is done nationally. Traditionally, if you're a junior academic looking for a job, you apply to all the jobs listed in your field in the US. So colleges and universities in Florida are hiring from the same applicant pool as all the other institutions are. If anything, given that there's a strong bias in favor of hiring applicants with Ivy-League and other elite PhDs, schools that feel worried about their relative prestige are MORE likely to hire candidates from institutions where there's a lot of progressivism.
The real divide between woke and non-woke institutions, as some commenters here touched on last week, runs along secular vs. seriously religious lines. (Think Vassar vs. Covenant College.) Even at the more religious and less woke institutions, there will be more progressivism in certain departments, and faculty will generally be more progressive than first-year students.
And in a national search, the hiring committee composed of faculty has a large role in the process. It is the first interview a candidate has before the committee creates a short list for campus visits. A candidate who makes the short list has likely read the same books and come to the same conclusions as those on the committee, and would signal them by talking about how their research fits into the latest intellectual trends. That means very little deviation in worldview within departments as people naturally would want to hire people like themselves. I’m not sure how hiring in admin works, but it is probably similar, and they go through the same educational leadership programs.
Truth about academia and national hiring. I'm most familiar with law, where the faculty of even East Podunk Law Skule is littered with elite law school grads. I know a scammy "for profit" school that had these faculty members.
Google "Dan Markel". Double Harvard grad ends up teaching in Tallahassee, much to the consternation of his cosmopolitan wife, who preferred Miami area near her cosmopolitan family and friends. Ugly divorce/custody battle ended with Markel being murdered by hit men hired by wife's family.
I know I presented a very extreme example, but it's a good illustration of the type of people who populate academia in "flyover" country.
I'll echo what Katie and the several academics whose emails were cited at the beginning of the episode said about universities being as "woke" in Florida, Western NC, and other stereotypically not-woke regions as anywhere else. The reason is that academic hiring is done nationally. Traditionally, if you're a junior academic looking for a job, you apply to all the jobs listed in your field in the US. So colleges and universities in Florida are hiring from the same applicant pool as all the other institutions are. If anything, given that there's a strong bias in favor of hiring applicants with Ivy-League and other elite PhDs, schools that feel worried about their relative prestige are MORE likely to hire candidates from institutions where there's a lot of progressivism.
The real divide between woke and non-woke institutions, as some commenters here touched on last week, runs along secular vs. seriously religious lines. (Think Vassar vs. Covenant College.) Even at the more religious and less woke institutions, there will be more progressivism in certain departments, and faculty will generally be more progressive than first-year students.
And in a national search, the hiring committee composed of faculty has a large role in the process. It is the first interview a candidate has before the committee creates a short list for campus visits. A candidate who makes the short list has likely read the same books and come to the same conclusions as those on the committee, and would signal them by talking about how their research fits into the latest intellectual trends. That means very little deviation in worldview within departments as people naturally would want to hire people like themselves. I’m not sure how hiring in admin works, but it is probably similar, and they go through the same educational leadership programs.
Truth about academia and national hiring. I'm most familiar with law, where the faculty of even East Podunk Law Skule is littered with elite law school grads. I know a scammy "for profit" school that had these faculty members.
Google "Dan Markel". Double Harvard grad ends up teaching in Tallahassee, much to the consternation of his cosmopolitan wife, who preferred Miami area near her cosmopolitan family and friends. Ugly divorce/custody battle ended with Markel being murdered by hit men hired by wife's family.
I know I presented a very extreme example, but it's a good illustration of the type of people who populate academia in "flyover" country.