Talk:Mathematics Jobs Wiki 2008-2009

If you accepted a position this year, or if you won a postdoctoral award such as an NSF postdoc, then it would be a service to the community to add your name here.

Traditionally short lists and offers are often viewed as confidential in the academic job market. In my view, much of this tradition is not true confidentiality and it would help the mathematical community to share information. On the other hand, it is a non-trivial question and sometimes there are reasons to keep these things confidential. But I have not seen any good reason for universities to hide to who they actually hire. I have seen bad reasons, although I won't dwell on them here. Strictly speaking, new appointments cannot stay confidential; but in practice most of the information hides in plain sight.

People generally work very hard to succeed in the math job market. They deserve to know who did succeed and why. They may use this information to improve their job prospects the next time, or at the very least to better understand their fate. At the same time, universities are public or quasi-public institutions, and their final decisions should be visible to the public as a matter of accountability.

Wiki Nonmoderator 17:48, 1 March 2009 (PST)