I think people have a very distorted view of the academy. The academy is under a lot of pressure--demographic pressures, generational shift, and now government funding pressure (have you heard about the fact that Trump would like to eliminate the Dept of Ed? the reduction in fringes from negotatiated rates to 15%). HiEd is increasingly relying on adjuncts over creating meaningful jobs with benefits. I think you picture a serene thoughtful place, not the extremely competitive environment that has come about because of a surfeit of PhDs, a large number of applicants for each job, and a very small and decreasing number of tenure track jobs.

I can appreciate why a change from the federal workforce would appeal. Without having a sense of your niche field, I would encourage you to think about:
- are there any policy think tanks or government adjacent organizations that are doing work in your area?
- if you like to teach, does it have to be in higher ed? could teaching at a high school (such as a private one) satisfy that part of you?
- if you like to write and publish, are there technical publications in your industry that need technical editors, editors in chief.

Said differently, I am sure there is a place for you, but I don't think the academy is necessarily an easy one to get.

Anonymous wrote:
For the record, I never said anything about having a "high-powered" academic career. In fact, I'd be thrilled to have an exceedingly low-powered academic career. Honestly, I love teaching and working with students.

so, that qualifies you to be a lecturer or adjunct, and universities prefer to pay adjunct rates where possible (basically using ABD and post-docs as slave labor). The actual business of most universities is focused on grants, and most of the effort is expended on *obtaining* grants. however, even on already awarded many-year contracts the federal gov via NSF and NIH and USAID is defaulting on existing grants. the resulting effects on academia will be devastating, especially at the higher-profile universities. universities with big endowments might be able to redistribute money to keep some labs and departments afloat but is going to be hard. i worked as staff in the computer department of a large university and on the invisible back end my actual employment was tied to the overhead of a rotation of grants, and i was abruptly let go when one grant didn't renew.

thats's going to cascade, a lot. this is going to be economically much worse for the country than 2007/2008.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP there are a number of academics who frequent DCUM. Tell us your field and maybe we can be more helpful. But insisting that you have all the qualifications for a high-powered academic career while asking a very elementary question (how to find funding) isn't very credible.

As a PP said, academia has its own massive structural issues. Low pay, vicious politics, and more. I routinely discourage young people from aspiring to academic careers because of the limited opportunities, especially if you are tied to a geographic area or care about being in a major city. It's even more daunting for mid-career changers. Professionals, even with publications and adjunct experience, rarely make the shift to FT professorships.

OP here. The bolded is interesting and disheartening.
For the record, I never said anything about having a "high-powered" academic career. In fact, I'd be thrilled to have an exceedingly low-powered academic career. Honestly, I love teaching and working with students.

I am quite competent, expert even, in a niche area in my field and have numerous peer reviewed (not in junk not in top) journal articles, many presentations at the top conferences in my field and 2 book chapters. I'm not saying I'm set up to be an academic phenom, but I do have some credibility.

As for not knowing how academia works, guilty as charged. I have adjuncted regularly, but have been focused on my job in another sector. I've been wondering if it would be feasible to move to academia for a while and the government chaos has accelerated my wonderings.

Thank you to everyone who has provided useful information.

You sound like an accomplished professional but the unfortunate reality is being an accomplished practitioner is NOT the same as being an academic. Getting a tenure-track or even teaching-track academic job is cutthroat, low-paying, and most accessible to recent post-docs or lateral academics with (academic) cache in this environment. It's almost akin to saying "I am an accomplished career patent attorney and want to take a job as a litigator." It's just not really analogous, and rarely works out. When I applied for my tenure-track job about 7 years ago in a "less competitive academic field" 20+ people applied, and I beat out seasoned, published academics. One exception might be a field like nursing or art where there is sometimes demand or value in having a career practitioner transition over to teaching, but the scholarship there works differently.

We are not trying to discourage you, but rather explain that the shift is not as easy as it seems, nor is it straightforward in the skills and experience.

You might want to reach out to a professional consultant that helps with this stuff. The Professor Is In is one. I find her a little extra and grating, but I do think she'd be good for this type of advice. Her website may also be helpful on its own. https://theprofessorisin.com

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have a professional career in the social sciences and have taught as an adjunct previously. I'd like to transition to academia. I enjoy research and working with students. What I don't understand is how funding works. Departments expect incoming professors to have funding? How do I get funding?

Don’t take this too harshly but if you’re a GS15 or SES, it’s unlikely you’d get a TT job before all of this went down and now the chances are near zero, unless you’re at a policy school. You’re probably a stale PhD from a hiring committees perspective.

I am sorry but +1.

What is a stale PhD?

If you have to ask what a stale PhD is...then you're definitely a stale PhD!

-- another PhD but not qualified for academia

Anonymous wrote:OP there are a number of academics who frequent DCUM. Tell us your field and maybe we can be more helpful. But insisting that you have all the qualifications for a high-powered academic career while asking a very elementary question (how to find funding) isn't very credible.

As a PP said, academia has its own massive structural issues. Low pay, vicious politics, and more. I routinely discourage young people from aspiring to academic careers because of the limited opportunities, especially if you are tied to a geographic area or care about being in a major city. It's even more daunting for mid-career changers. Professionals, even with publications and adjunct experience, rarely make the shift to FT professorships.

OP here. The bolded is interesting and disheartening.
For the record, I never said anything about having a "high-powered" academic career. In fact, I'd be thrilled to have an exceedingly low-powered academic career. Honestly, I love teaching and working with students.

I am quite competent, expert even, in a niche area in my field and have numerous peer reviewed (not in junk not in top) journal articles, many presentations at the top conferences in my field and 2 book chapters. I'm not saying I'm set up to be an academic phenom, but I do have some credibility.

As for not knowing how academia works, guilty as charged. I have adjuncted regularly, but have been focused on my job in another sector. I've been wondering if it would be feasible to move to academia for a while and the government chaos has accelerated my wonderings.

Thank you to everyone who has provided useful information.

OP there are a number of academics who frequent DCUM. Tell us your field and maybe we can be more helpful. But insisting that you have all the qualifications for a high-powered academic career while asking a very elementary question (how to find funding) isn't very credible.

As a PP said, academia has its own massive structural issues. Low pay, vicious politics, and more. I routinely discourage young people from aspiring to academic careers because of the limited opportunities, especially if you are tied to a geographic area or care about being in a major city. It's even more daunting for mid-career changers. Professionals, even with publications and adjunct experience, rarely make the shift to FT professorships.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Oh. Ive been publishing. Not in top 5 but I have a lot of publications. Am I stale?

Do you have publications in the top peer reviewed academic journals in your field? If you did, you wouldn't be asking DCUM about how to get a job in academia.

If you're a Washingtonian with a few opeds or Slate articles to your name, you may be able to pick up a course as an adjunct here or there, but as you probably already know there's no real money in that. There are lots of administrative jobs at universities, but even those will be tough to get as an outsider.

Some of the DC schools have positions for exiting USG officials, but any of those opportunities were claimed by November 6th. Most of them are short term any way.

I do, in fact, have publications in peer reviewed academic journals. Did you think I meant I'd been posting on DCUM?

A GS-14/15 who published in PLOS ONE a few times thinks s/he is the same as someone whose been publishing in top-tier journals as a prof for years.

It’s who’s, not whose, in this sentence, smarty pants. Hope you don’t make those kinds of mistakes when you submit to your top-tier journals.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Oh. Ive been publishing. Not in top 5 but I have a lot of publications. Am I stale?

Do you have publications in the top peer reviewed academic journals in your field? If you did, you wouldn't be asking DCUM about how to get a job in academia.

If you're a Washingtonian with a few opeds or Slate articles to your name, you may be able to pick up a course as an adjunct here or there, but as you probably already know there's no real money in that. There are lots of administrative jobs at universities, but even those will be tough to get as an outsider.

Some of the DC schools have positions for exiting USG officials, but any of those opportunities were claimed by November 6th. Most of them are short term any way.

I do, in fact, have publications in peer reviewed academic journals. Did you think I meant I'd been posting on DCUM?

A GS-14/15 who published in PLOS ONE a few times thinks s/he is the same as someone whose been publishing in top-tier journals as a prof for years.

Dp. They are coming for academia next. And frankly hiding away your career in academia is not as esteemed as you think. So yes, an actual policy person with experience in the field might be competitive despite how much ass kissing you’ve been doing with the VP’s and provost all these years. It’s all politics everywhere. Don’t get too comfortable.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Oh. Ive been publishing. Not in top 5 but I have a lot of publications. Am I stale?

Do you have publications in the top peer reviewed academic journals in your field? If you did, you wouldn't be asking DCUM about how to get a job in academia.

If you're a Washingtonian with a few opeds or Slate articles to your name, you may be able to pick up a course as an adjunct here or there, but as you probably already know there's no real money in that. There are lots of administrative jobs at universities, but even those will be tough to get as an outsider.

Some of the DC schools have positions for exiting USG officials, but any of those opportunities were claimed by November 6th. Most of them are short term any way.

I do, in fact, have publications in peer reviewed academic journals. Did you think I meant I'd been posting on DCUM?

A GS-14/15 who published in PLOS ONE a few times thinks s/he is the same as someone whose been publishing in top-tier journals as a prof for years.

Hmm. Does shaming someone for not knowing something make you feel smart?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Oh. Ive been publishing. Not in top 5 but I have a lot of publications. Am I stale?

Do you have publications in the top peer reviewed academic journals in your field? If you did, you wouldn't be asking DCUM about how to get a job in academia.

If you're a Washingtonian with a few opeds or Slate articles to your name, you may be able to pick up a course as an adjunct here or there, but as you probably already know there's no real money in that. There are lots of administrative jobs at universities, but even those will be tough to get as an outsider.

Some of the DC schools have positions for exiting USG officials, but any of those opportunities were claimed by November 6th. Most of them are short term any way.

I do, in fact, have publications in peer reviewed academic journals. Did you think I meant I'd been posting on DCUM?

A GS-14/15 who published in PLOS ONE a few times thinks s/he is the same as someone whose been publishing in top-tier journals as a prof for years.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Oh. Ive been publishing. Not in top 5 but I have a lot of publications. Am I stale?

Do you have publications in the top peer reviewed academic journals in your field? If you did, you wouldn't be asking DCUM about how to get a job in academia.

If you're a Washingtonian with a few opeds or Slate articles to your name, you may be able to pick up a course as an adjunct here or there, but as you probably already know there's no real money in that. There are lots of administrative jobs at universities, but even those will be tough to get as an outsider.

Some of the DC schools have positions for exiting USG officials, but any of those opportunities were claimed by November 6th. Most of them are short term any way.

I do, in fact, have publications in peer reviewed academic journals. Did you think I meant I'd been posting on DCUM?

Do you not know the academic job market for your field? I'd get in touch with your network to find out about that if you dont know. Peer reviewed journal publications are not the same as A publications. Most TT academic jobs I know of require the latter (peer reviewed publications in the top journals in your field). This varied greatly by specialty though (for some, top peer reviewed conference proceedings are the standard)

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Oh. Ive been publishing. Not in top 5 but I have a lot of publications. Am I stale?

Do you have publications in the top peer reviewed academic journals in your field? If you did, you wouldn't be asking DCUM about how to get a job in academia.

If you're a Washingtonian with a few opeds or Slate articles to your name, you may be able to pick up a course as an adjunct here or there, but as you probably already know there's no real money in that. There are lots of administrative jobs at universities, but even those will be tough to get as an outsider.

Some of the DC schools have positions for exiting USG officials, but any of those opportunities were claimed by November 6th. Most of them are short term any way.

I do, in fact, have publications in peer reviewed academic journals. Did you think I meant I'd been posting on DCUM?

Good journals or dump journals?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have a professional career in the social sciences and have taught as an adjunct previously. I'd like to transition to academia. I enjoy research and working with students. What I don't understand is how funding works. Departments expect incoming professors to have funding? How do I get funding?

It means you have an existing grant or award that you bring with you to your university.

Where do you get one of those? I do t get it

You come up with an interesting piece of research, peddle it to a funder, then get funded via a grant or contract or cooperative agreement. When you move from your current organization, you are eligible to take said grant or contract with you to your new job. Sometimes you can't depending on the nature of the funding or other specific requirements of the grant or agreement.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have a professional career in the social sciences and have taught as an adjunct previously. I'd like to transition to academia. I enjoy research and working with students. What I don't understand is how funding works. Departments expect incoming professors to have funding? How do I get funding?

It means you have an existing grant or award that you bring with you to your university.

Where do you get one of those? I do t get it

You write grant proposals. Apply for funding to support your research plans. But this can be hard to get, especially now.

Anonymous wrote:I have a professional career in the social sciences and have taught as an adjunct previously. I'd like to transition to academia. I enjoy research and working with students. What I don't understand is how funding works. Departments expect incoming professors to have funding? How do I get funding?

The best way to start with showing a track record of funding is in grad school to get graduate fellowships from NSF or NIH. After that, you might try to apply for funding from your institution and then smaller grants from outside funding agencies (government but also foundations) which help you get bigger ones later. If you are not currently in the system, I would try to get added to someone else's grant as a consultant or a co-PI.