Contrary to the title of this panel, expectations for junior faculty in those departments at the University of Iowa which expect monographic publications for promotion and tenure haven't yet changed, even though it's clearly getting harder and harder for junior colleagues in these departments to find publishers for their monographs.
Compounding the problem in some of our Humanities and Social Science Departments, including those that are nationally ranked, is the expectation that promotion to tenure requires both a book based on the dissertation and, at least, a contract for another book based on post-dissertation work done at Iowa.
Junior faculty in these departments face substantial additional stressors as well.
These stressors include rumors, unfounded at present, that universities like Iowa are trying to reduce the number of tenured positions. In fact, at Iowa, that's the case only in the medical and dental colleges, which are under intense financial pressures from managed care, and in a few liberal arts departments that are overstaffed.
And, as if the publishing and tenure-reduction rumor pressures weren't enough, junior faculty in the Arts and Humanities at Iowa have also discovered that the financial support on which their predecessors have depended for release time from teaching to do their writing and, on occasion, for subventions for publication costs has become much harder to come by, as the beleagured national endowment for the humanities fights for its life and the private foundations that have done this kind of thing in the past shift their commitments away from the academy.
While there are some obvious solutions to these problems, which junior faculty at Iowa share with their peers at similar universities across the country, most depend on the willingness of tradition-bound departments and universities to modify their expectations.
Many, including some at Iowa, are reluctant to do so.
These adjustments would require that departments broaden the material that can be included in a junior colleague's promotion packet, material like journal articles rather than only a published monograph, as well as material like monographs appearing in electronic format rather than only in hard cover.
Frankly, I'm not sanguine about the willingness of tradition-bound departments in prestigious universities to make these adjustments.
By contrast, it is also clear to me that less strong departments in less prestigious universities will almost certainly have to do so.
At the same time, it seems likely that universities of all varieties will have to consider support programs to help fund publication costs for junior faculty for whom monographic publication is expected for promotion and tenure.
That's not such a stretch as it might seem, since page charges for journal articles, paid for from federal research grants or, when necessary, by departments have long been a fact of life for science faculty.
More intriguing in the discussion of changing expectations in which so many of us have been engaged for the past few years is the radical notion that dissertation topics increasingly may have to be chosen for their market potential not simply their scholarly appeal.
What concerns about the market for monographs may mean is the institution of a "survival of the fittest" competition among junior faculty for the most appealing combination of appropriate and necessary scholarship and market appeal.
Certain fields lend themselves to such a competition more readily than others.
As Shapiro has noted, it's not easy to make that new monograph on Milton sufficiently novel to justify its publication, while monographs on cultural studies currently have an assured audience.
Nonetheless, there is some attraction to the notion that the criteria for a dissertation topic ought to include sufficient consideration of the topic's interest to ensure that a monograph on the topic will repay its publication costs.
It has never seemed clear to me why the most desireable dissertation topics in some fields also appear to be the most obscure.
Then again, mine is not a monographic field.
Psychology puts a premium on empirical studies published in journals - and my own subfield, clinical psychology, concerns itself with a topic, mental illness, of great interest to practically everyone.
To conclude:
Will the changing expectations for promotion and tenure in the monographic fields in the humanities and social sciences brought on by the financial crisis the nonprofit publishers are facing have a dramatic impact on the numbers and quality of young scholars in these fields?
No - and yes.
No for good to excellent monographic departments in most AAU universities, whose junior faculty will probably still be able to find outlets for their dissertation monographs (although, even in these departments, there may well be some pressure to "count" lengthy essays and articles in lieu of that second monograph.)
Yes for other departments and universities, whose junior faculty will experience increasing difficulty getting a favorable publication decision from traditional publication outlets like university presses.
Alternative outlets like the electronic, subventions from university funds, and/or changed departmental expectations will clearly be in the future for these departments.
Given that there continues to be a surplus of qualified young scholars in some of these fields, these universities may also decide to take this situation as an opportunity to increase the number of term - as against tenure - appointments.
I conclude that while the future is unlikely to be catastrophic, it will certainly be a good deal more difficult for junior faculty in the fields which, to this time, have expected monographs for promotion and tenure.