Open letter to Poets & Writers from creative writing faculty regarding those rankings they keep doing.
Quoted in full below, minus the usual above-it-all commentary and snarky headline from the Observer, for your reading pleasure.
UPDATES/ADDS:
9/12/2011 Stacey Harwood offers some background on the letter at the Best American Poetry blog, with links to other BAP posts. I missed John Gallaher’s super-smart observations (he’s always super-smart and reasonable and, frankly, he’s setting too high of a bar for these kind of discussions). Julianna Baggott wrote about why she signed the letter. Associated Writing Programs’ D.W. Fenza offered a response recently as well.
9/13/2011 Sam Amadon’s Letter to an MFA Applicant over at Coldfront is pretty great. Stacey Harwood adds another post about methodology, or lack thereof. ”A good deal of the “methodology” section is devoted to history of MFAs and to discrediting other polls–irrelevant in a discussion of methodology,” she writes. “I could go on.”
9/14/2011 Poets & Writers editorial director Mary Gannon emailed me to link to their response to the letter, which is here. “I have to say, it’s a little misleading to say that Stacey Harwood’s blog post[s? ] is just “background” on the issue,” Gannon writes to me. “But, well…I don’t know what else to say.” I asked Gannon how would she characterize the posts, since I was going for a rather generic classification of the links provided above. “It was, well, a call to boycott our magazine,” she writes. I emailed Gannon in part to say I didn’t think she was serious about that, but that’s just my take right now.
Anyway, full disclosures: I have written for Poets & Writers magazine in the past, and PW have given some money for readings I have coordinated. I love them. I have also written for the Best American Poetry blog, appeared in BAP once many years ago, and know, like, 50 or so people who have signed the letter. I love BAP and love most of the people who I know who signed the letter thing.
The New Yorker blogs about the letter and rankings.
And all the while, it should be noted, the Poetry Foundation’s Harriet blog keeps Rickrolling us, putting its SEO workshops to work.
Jake Adam York (super name) blogs eloquently about all this jazz here at the Kenyon Review blog.
Anyway, the letter.
***
AN OPEN LETTER FROM CREATIVE WRITING FACULTY REGARDING THE POETS & WRITERS PROGRAM RANKINGS
The people who have signed this letter have all taught as creative writing program faculty. Many of us are now program directors and serve as members of our admissions committees. Most of us also hold MFA and/or doctoral degrees. We hope our collective experience and expertise will provide good counsel to anyone thinking about applying to writing programs.
To put it plainly, the Poets & Writers rankings are bad: they are methodologically specious in the extreme and quite misleading. A biased opinion poll—based on a tiny, self-selecting survey of potential program applicants—provides poor information. Poets & Writers itself includes on its website a disclaimer suggesting the limitations of these rankings, recommending that potential applicants look beyond them. Regrettably, the information appears on a separate page.
What’s worse, if a program decides against encouraging a bad process by choosing not to provide information, P&W’s process insists on including that program as though the information was negative, a procedure we think is unethical, as well as statistically misleading. The P&W rankings, in their language and approach, labor to create the impression that the application process between applicants and programs is adversarial. It is not, as any proper, sensible survey of MFA students and alumni would indicate.
Instead of asking such students and alumni about quality of instruction, or anything else about actual program content, P&W’s rankings are heavily skewed toward viewing a program’s financial aid offer as the final arbiter of that program’s overall quality. We agree that financial aid must be a serious consideration, but a student’s relationship with his or her faculty—what and how one learns—is at least equally as important.
In economic times like these, there is no immediate correspondence between any degree and employment. This is particularly true of the MFA in creative writing and PhD in English with a creative dissertation. While we work hard to help our graduates find jobs, it is essential to understand that creative writing for the vast majority is not a profession. Some writers earn their living as teachers, but others are lawyers, full-time homemakers, doctors, editors, business owners, sales clerks, and mechanics. No applicant should consider pursuing a creative writing degree assuming the credential itself leads to an academic job. And no applicant should put her or himself in financial peril in order to pursue the degree.
Our best advice is to do your research through the programs you’re considering. If you are able to visit those programs, ask to sit in on classes and for the contact information of current and recent students. Talk to people you respect about different programs. Read work by the instructors.
Most programs have basic academic and financial information available on their websites. But don’t hesitate to ask questions of the program directors, admissions committee members, and students presently attending the programs. This kind of commonsensical research will help you find a program suited to your hopes and talents.
Sincerely,
Jonathan Aaron, Emerson College
Lee K. Abbott, Ohio State University
Jonis Agee, University of Nebraska – Lincoln
Marla Akin, University of Texas Michener Center for Writers
Julianna Baggott, Florida State University
Sally Ball, Arizona State University
Aliki Barnstone, University of Missouri – Columbia
Steven Barthelme, University of Southern Mississippi
Jocelyn Bartkevicius, University of Central Florida
Robin Behn, University of Alabama
Erin Belieu, Florida State University
Karen E. Bender, University of North Carolina Wilmington
April Bernard, Skidmore College
Mark Bibbins, The New School
Mary Biddinger, The University of Akron
Scott Blackwood, Roosevelt University
Robert Boswell, University of Houston
David Bosworth, University of Washington
Mark Brazaitis, West Virginia University
Lucie Brock-Broido, Columbia University
Ben Brooks, Emerson College
John Gregory Brown, Sweet Briar College
Andrea Hollander Budy, Lyon College
Janet Burroway, Florida State University
Robert Olen Butler, Florida State University
Sarah Shun-Lien Bynum, University of California, San Diego
Scott Cairns, University of Missouri – Columbia
Kara Candito, University of Wisconsin – Platteville
Kevin Canty, University of Montana at Missoula
Mary Carroll-Hackett, Longwood University
Michelle Carter, San Francisco State University
Alexander Chee, Columbia University
Alan Cheuse, George Mason University
Jeanne E. Clark, California State University Chico
Brian Clements, Western Connecticut State University
Mick Cochrane, Canisius College
Michael Collier, University of Maryland
Gillian Conoley, Sonoma State University
Bob Cowser, St. Lawrence University
Jennine Capó Crucet, Florida State University
Kelly Daniels, Augustana College
R. H. W. Dillard, Hollins University
Chitra Divakaruni, University of Houston
Jim Dodge, Humboldt State University
Timothy Donnelly, Columbia University
Michael Dumanis, Cleveland State University
Camille Dungy, San Francisco State University
Karl Elder, Lakeland College
Leslie Epstein, Boston University
Elaine Equi, New York University
David Everett, Johns Hopkins University
Kathy Fagan, Ohio State University
Andrew Feld, University of Washington
Elizabeth Stuckey-French, Florida State University
Ned Stuckey-French, Florida State University
Forrest Gander, Brown University
Eric Gansworth, Canisius College
Steve Garrison, University of Central Oklahoma
Maria Gillan, Binghamton University, State University of New York
Michele Glazer, Portland State University
Tod Goldberg, University of California, Riverside Palm Desert
Eric Goodman, Miami University of Ohio
Jaimy Gordon, Western Michigan University
Carol Guerrero-Murphy, Adams State College
Corrinne Clegg Hales, California State University, Fresno
Rachel Hall, State University of New York at Geneseo
Barbara Hamby, Florida State University
Cathryn Hankla, Hollins University
James Harms, West Virginia University
Charles Hartman, Connecticut College
Yona Harvey, Carnegie Mellon University
Ehud Havazelet, University of Oregon
Steve Heller, Antioch University Los Angeles
Robin Hemley, University of Iowa
DeWitt Henry, Emerson College
Michelle Herman, Ohio State University
Laraine Herring, Yavapai College
Sue Hertz, University of New Hampshire
Tony Hoagland, University of Houston
Janet Holmes, Boise State University
Garrett Hongo, University of Oregon
Ha Jin, Boston University
Arnold Johnston, Western Michigan University
Diana Joseph, Minnesota State University, Mankato
Laura Kasischke, University of Michigan
Catherine Kasper, University of Texas at San Antonio
J. Kastely, University of Houston
Richard Katrovas, Western Michigan University
Christopher Kennedy, Syracuse University
Richard Kenney, University of Washington
David Keplinger, American University
James Kimbrell, Florida State University
David Kirby, Florida State University
Binnie Kirshenbaum, Columbia University
Karen Kovacik, Indiana University – Purdue University Indianapolis
Stephen Kuusisto, Syracuse University
Deborah Landau, New York University
Jeanne Larsen, Hollins University
David Lehman, The New School
Dana Levin, Santa Fe University of Art and Design
Lisa Lewis, Oklahoma State University
Catherine Lewis, Purchase College, State University of New York
Samuel Ligon, Eastern Washington University
Robert Lopez, The New School
Denise Low, Haskell Indian Nations
Kirsten Lunstrum, Purchase College, State University of New York
Patrick Madden, Brigham Young University
Megan Marshall, Emerson College
Michael Martone, University of Alabama
Cate Marvin, College of Staten Island, The City University of New York
Gail Mazur, Emerson College
Janet McAdams, Kenyon College
Shara McCallum, Bucknell University
Karen Salyer McElmurray, Georgia College & State University
Heather McHugh, University of Washington
Sarah Messer, University of North Carolina Wilmington
Jennifer Militello, River Valley Community College
Wayne Miller, University of Central Missouri
Debra Monroe, Texas State University
Dinty W. Moore, Ohio University
Brian Morton, Sarah Lawrence College
Rick Mulkey, Converse College
Brighde Mullins, University of Southern California
Antonya Nelson, University of Houston
Ian Blake Newhem, Rockland Community College, State University of New York
Thisbe Nissen, Western Michigan University
Daniel Orozco, University of Idaho
Pamela Painter, Emerson College
Alan Michael Parker, Davidson College
Jeff Parker, University of Tampa
Oliver de la Paz, Western Washington University
Donna de la Perriere, San Francisco State University
Joyce Peseroff, University of Massachusetts Boston
Todd James Pierce, California Polytechnic State University
Robert Pinsky, Boston University
Kevin Prufer, University of Houston
Imad Rahman, Cleveland State University
Ladette Randolph, Emerson College
Marthe Reed, University of Louisiana Lafayette
Nelly Reifler, Sarah Lawrence College
Frederick Reiken, Emerson College
Paisley Rekdal, University of Utah
R. Clay Reynolds, University of Texas at Dallas
Kathryn Rhett, Gettysburg College
David Rivard, University of New Hampshire
Richard Robbins, Minnesota State University, Mankato
Mary F. Rockcastle, Hamline University
Robin Romm, New Mexico State University
Michael Ryan, University of California, Irvine
Benjamin Alíre Sáenz, University of Texas at El Paso
Martha Serpas, University of Houston
Bob Shacochis, Florida State University
Brenda Shaughnessy, New York University
Aurelie Sheehan, University of Arizona
David Shields, University of Washington
John Skoyles, Emerson College
Tom Sleigh, Hunter College
Casey Smith, Corcoran College of Art and Design
Maya Sonenberg, University of Washington
Gregory Spatz, Eastern Washington University
Brent Spencer, Creighton University
Sheryl St. Germain, Chatham University
Les Standiford, Florida International University
Domenic Stansberry, Vermont College
Thom Tammaro, Minnesota State University Moorhead
Alexandra Teague, University of Idaho
Daniel Tobin, Emerson College
Mark Todd, Western State College
Ann Townsend, Denison University
Peter Turchi, Arizona State University
Paul Vangelisti, Otis College of Art & Design
Sidney Wade, University of Florida
Jerald Walker, Emerson College
Rosanna Warren, Boston University
Laura Lee Washburn, Pittsburg State University
Joshua Weiner, University of Maryland
Lesley Wheeler, Washington and Lee University
Richard Wiley, University of Nevada, Las Vegas
Ann Joslin Williams, University of New Hampshire
David Wojahn, Virginia Commonwealth University
Gregory Wolfe, Seattle Pacific University
C.D. Wright, Brown University
Robert Wrigley, University of Idaho
Steve Yarbrough, Emerson College
Stephen Yenser, University of California, Los Angeles
C. Dale Young, Warren Wilson College
Matthew Zapruder, University of California, Riverside Palm Desert
Lisa Zeidner, Rutgers-Camden, The State University of New Jersey
Alan Ziegler, Columbia University
Leni Zumas, Portland State University
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I’m a second year MFA candidate in fiction, and I remember application season all too well. Funding was my number one criterion when I began my extensive research into programs simply because I couldn’t go if I wasn’t funded. Like the letter mentions, MFAs offer no kind of job security; the degrees directly qualifies you for nothing (except teaching comp, I suppose). And I agree with the letter that this is not a degree that makes a lot of economic sense to go into debt for. Faculty relationships are important, but (and obviously I only have direct experience with limited number of programs) I would hazard to say that most programs provide able and willing instructors. Beyond speaking with students about classroom structure/general personality (which I encourage any applicant to do), I’m not sure how helpful any information regarding faculty could be. One student may rave about a professor’s instruction methods, while another may dislike it. Prestigious award/publications do not necessarily translate into good teaching methods. Reading the books of faculty would probably give an applicant the best idea of a professor’s aesthetic, but no one has the time to read EVERY faculty-written book. In the end, we’re banking on blind faith.
Unfortunately, many programs’ websites are misleading in terms of funding, or they omit important information. I was accepted into two great programs (by my research, and who aren’t currently in the top 25 of these lists) whose websites advertised funding when they didn’t actually have funding for accepted students. I understand that these things vary from year to year, but a student has the right to be updated on this information. One of the most frustrating things about the application process was the seeming lack of program transparency. I looked at so many websites that the programs with the best ones (updated, straightforward, detailed information), moved quickly into my good graces. When I encountered an outdated, confusing website I thought, “What kind of program can’t even maintain their website?” It’s an issue. I agree with Seth Abramson’s call for program transparency, though I also agree that his approach is bothersome. Regardless, it’s in every program’s best interest to make their site as detailed as possible. In my opinion, the best sites even include current student bios, lists of former students with links to accomplishments, detailed faculty bios with links to publications, and information about the university/city in general.
If I were to advise an applicant on choosing a program, I would tell her to look at (after funding opportunities) the curriculum’s structure. I’m not sure many applicants realize how widely the curriculum varies from program to program. I chose a very flexible program, with many elective hours and little requirements outside of workshop. Other programs require literature-based courses and language courses, which might suit another applicant better.
I would then tell her to look at location, if that is the kind of factor that affects her. I think applicants underestimate this, but if one prefers cities, living in a semi-rural town for three year may affect morale and productivity.
The number of programs in this country and abroad is overwhelming. I would suggest using the P&W rankings as a STARTING POINT. I do agree that they are flawed, and it’s unfortunate they many view it as the end-all list, but a smart applicant will immediately see its weaknesses. To the faculty whose programs are being hurt by this list (and I assume this is true, because I’m attending a program (and I love it! Don’t get me wrong!) that, somewhat arbitrarily I’ll admit, has been bolstered by this list), I’ll contend that it’s unfair. But you probably don’t want the applicant who takes this list as fact. Just make sure your program’s website is as stellar as it can be, and silently (or loudly!) resent Seth Abramson. (And as an aside, I do believe all ill feelings should be directed at Seth Abramson, the father of these lists. P&W probably just picked them up because they knew people would buy that issue. Every mag’s a poor mag just tryin’ to make a living.)
To any applicants that may be reading this I’ll say: In the end, I don’t think where you do your MFA really matters. I’ve heard agents physically go to places like Iowa and Columbia in search of new talent. Eh. If you write well and work hard, an agent will look at you no matter where you did your MFA. At the risk of sounding like a fatalist, you have everything working against you in this particular professional field. Any “advantages” you may perceive will have little to no baring on your career. Those writers whose paths come easily are called lucky, not privileged.
I’d add my name to this list. I’m starting my second year of teaching creative nonfiction in an undergraduate program at Dartmouth College, and I went to these rankings looking for advice I could pass on to students interested in an MFA. I didn’t go that route, myself, so I approached the rankings with no axe to grind. But I found them useless and ridiculous, especially when I started following the links to the various programs and thinking about the fabulous programs I know about that aren’t ranked at all, especially in creative nonfiction. I tell my students to ignore them.
I used to parrot the anti-MFA line. I’ve since come to see MFAs as valuable for a lot of people. But P&W’s attempt to professionalize and commodify MFA programs like business schools reminds me of my former skepticism of MFAs as the bureaucratization of writing for the sake of the host university’s coffers. The only thing missing from P&W’s chart is a list of average earnings 10 years out. So many institutions view MFAs like cash cows. MFA programs shouldn’t allow P&W to treat them as such. That’s bad for everybody, including those of us working or studying in undergraduate programs.
@Jessica, sincere thanks for your input. I found your response well balanced and thoughtful. I’ve been through an application season and was only waitlisted at one school, rejected by the others. Looking back, while $$ was the number one criterion for me, too, I should have applied to more “low-ranked” programs that maybe didn’t advertise Fortune 500 funding. I’ve since looked at a few of those programs–the ones I skipped purely because P&W didn’t sing their praises–and turns out I love the faculty, I love the courses they offer, the class sizes, etc. In terms of money, unless a program swears to applicants that they will offer you $0.00, you just never know. Even the notoriously stingy Columbia is reported to offer $$ to some incoming applicants. And I heard several stories from last year’s MFA draft wherein last-minute fellowships/scholarships were scrounged and offered to incoming students who figured they weren’t going to received a dime. I’m saying, in terms of funding, I’ve learned that you just never know…
@Jeff, have you seen Mark McGurl’s The Program Era? If not, once you check this book out, you’ll never waver from the pro-MFA camp.
The group letter is the plain truth. The small size of many MFA programs — as well as their incredible subjectivity and variety (i.e. a writer who thrives at one program might choose not to finish at another; a multiple departmental prizewinner in one program may go unrecognized at another) — make them a terribly poor use of the US News-style ranking. P&W, I think, knows this to be true, but overlooks the fact because rankings drive clicks and interest.
Just as an example, at my program (which is listed), something like 80% of the accepted class has non-mainstream religious experience. That makes for a great community — but how do you rate it? We’re the #1 program in splinter Mormons? The #1 program in devotional formalism? We are in fact the #1 program in being us, and that’s what potential students should be thinking about.
Finally, the great threat of bureaucratizing writing into programs and departments is that it loses touch with READERS — and our focus as writers should either be on the truth or on the reader (or both), never on the accreditation, institutional structure, or insider status of ourselves or our communities. As a trade rag, P&W is most prone to forgetting that nobody ever reads a novel because it comes out of Iowa, and no editor worth anything will ever accept a story because Texas State University climbed four rankings in the last ten years.
Calling for an immediate financial boycott of the largest non-profit magazine serving poets and writers in the United States, which boycott could (in theory) cause an entire organization with a substantial staff to go bankrupt and fold, is “offer[ing] some background”?
Ah, yes — that’s why I come to WWAATD: for all my unbiased poetry news.
I hear you’re guest-blogging on the same site the boycott was called for on — no connection, of course. Man, and to think you were my hero when you wrote that article about leaving NYC. Integrity is tough to maintain, when guest-blogging gigs are in the offing, I suppose.
S.
The idea of Seth Abramson, the scam artist who made obviously flawed rankings so that he could then sell his “services” of charging MFA applicants to help with their applications, talking about bias and accusing people of throwing away their integrity for blogging “gigs” is pretty hilarious.
I like your poems, Seth, but this isn’t professional (if you are in fact Seth Abramson and not some ultra-sneaky troll) — for a lot of obvious reasons that you’re probably sensitive to now that you’ve written it, but also because the blog is more or less in line with the zeitgeist. A /lot/ of people feel this way, students, teachers, administrators, poets. P&W needs to know that when someone in the grad student lounge looks up the ranking and finds out “we’re tied for fourth!” or what have you, everybody sneers. Such is true, I would imagine, whether the rank is high or low.
Those who might take the rankings seriously — students applying to schools — are the ones with the least information, and those most likely to be heavily misled. As the New Yorker points out and the P&W admits, they’re also the ones that shouldn’t be basing decision-making on the polls, even though the rankings are obviously designed to be used for that purpose.
On a personal note, if this is causing you suffering or making you angry, I’d give serious thought to not doing this particular kind of ranking work. Quitting wouldn’t be an admission of guilt or defeat — I think you were probably motivated by a desire to encourage transparency, and a drive to share information with students — it would rather be a way to accept that this particular form of expression had unpredictable side effects. You could concatenate funding/staff ratio/job placement and even student satisfaction polling into an unranked, alphabetized list and do every good thing that the rankings do, without a lot of the troublesome aftereffects.
i come here for the videos
I really love the videos.
Wow, Seth talk about axe to grind. What are the odds you’ll realize soon what a bag-man you’ve become for Poets & Writers “non-profit” need to sell magazines. I don’t suppose your ego would ever allow you to feel used though, huh?
Better yet, what are the odds you would ever consider taking a statistics class? Practically speaking, I’m pretty sure it would be of better use to you right now than any class you took at Iowa.
Why shouldn’t people want to boycott a magazine that publishes unscientific and biased research? Why doesn’t Poets & Writers spend the money to produce statistically relevant rankings? Probably, Seth, because it’s pretty expensive to higher statisticians who know what they are doing, and they have you to look bad for them.
Seth, your juvenile responses are so astute, and you play so well with others, that I’m sure all of the creative writing programs are going to be clamoring to give you a job once you graduate from the sandbox.