Open letter to Yossi Maurey

 

Hi Yossi,

 

Thank you for commenting on my post "Fair notification of music jobs in higher education".

 

You wrote: "I have no idea why you chose not to mention my name, as if my post to you was anonymous or secretive, whereas it was, in fact, public and open. Was this to enhance the ‘feeling of secrecy’ you talked about?"

 

The reason I didn’t mention your name was because your post did not support my argument. That’s all. I did not try to imply anything. You were not among the people who wrote to me privately.

 

 

I also did not mention the name of the Hebrew University in my post since I do know that it published information publically about a position that became vacant. I am not sure that other universities do so (this is why I asked to be corrected if I am wrong, concerning this point).

 

I also do not think that any department must or even should share information concerning how they choose people for jobs.

 

 

 

If you are speaking about the musicologist I refered to at my blog post than the answer is yes. If you are talking about the musicologist I refered to at the Google group than the aswer is: I am not sure. I agree that there is a difference between the two types of jobs. However, should there be one? Wouldn’t it be better if we could know about all types of vacancies?

 

Don’t we all know about the people who are hired for 8 months, and then fired. Only to be hired again next year. This process can be done for decades. I personally know a few people in Israeli Universities who is working this way for 20 years. They exist also in other places. The fact that this happens also in the USA does not make more moral or fair. This is just a way to use people. It also helps making the permanent jobs even fewer. I can tell you that at the University of London there are no such cases. In Kings College there are very few (3) such cases, much less than what you see in most Universities in Israel. Anyone how follows the struggles of young lecturers in Israel, knows that this is an issue that is constantly being raised as being unfair. Only recently a law was made that such lecturers would be paid 12 months and not 8. Indeed some improvement, but far from being ideal.

 

 

I felt it was important to share my experience, since I know that not only I feel that things should be fairer in the way applicants are being treated. I cannot share some of the things that people specifically told me now to share, yet I can tell you about a person that came for a job interview in one of the universities in Israel, and the professor that was suppose to meet him did not show up. He did not even call to apologize. There are other people in who know about that story and can confirm it.

Again, I do not want to say who was the applicant and who was the professor. I also think that it is not that important. My aim is not to through mud on any specific person or department, but to describe a hard feeling that quite a few people have from personal experience. Yes, many people are afraid to speak about such cases in public. This is a fact. 

 

Once again, this does not come to say that all professors and departments in Israel behave that way. This is far from being true. Yet, the feeling of secrecy around job vacancies is not something uncommon, and I argue that it would be better if it would change. Why don’t they share such information and let more people apply? The minimum that can be done is let our society know about it.

 

I do not want to speak in the name of others and I agree with you that it is a pity that people do not come forward to say what they have to say.

 

The thing is that the situation is hard and often unfair (it suprises me that you do not acknowledge it yourself).

 

 

I am not aware what is the law concerning publishing information about jobs at various music institutes. This is not the point.

 

I rather think that it would be less gloomy and more productive to speak about the future and how we can affect it so it would be more positive.

 

 

The most important point that I said is that I believe that the Israeli Musicological Society should aim to help its members promote themselves as scholars and teachers. One way of doing it is to help making more job opportunities become public (even if they are not obliged to be public according to the law). The Ministry of Education is probably not the address. 

 

Someone representative from our society should approach higher education institutes in Israel on a regular basis and make them aware that we, as a society, want to know about such jobs. We probably cannot force them to do so, and frankly I do not think that there is need to. It will be THEIR benefit, if they can choose from a larger variety of applicants. As I said in the post you commented on, it will help everybody.

 

It will also give more power to our society as new potential memeber will see that it may help them find a job. This means more members joining the society and more money to help its members.

 

All the best,

 

Avior  

 

Please read this post:  Second thoughts: the higher education jobs situation in Israel  

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