Conference on College Composition and Communication, April 2016
Since the 1980s, as composition has grown as a scholarly field, the composition job market has grown correspondingly in both size and complexity. Specifically, over the fourteen years since AY2000–01, ads seeking expertise in composition and rhetoric have consistently made up 30 percent or more of all job ads placed in the English edition of the MLA Job Information List—the most of the ten scholarly specializations offered in the English JIL. In addition to searches that departments announce in the JIL, numerous part-time and non-tenure-track hires are made throughout the academic year and over the summer. The practices described here apply to both tenure-track and non-tenure-track positions. The purpose of this statement is to provide guidance on best practices in hiring processes for positions in composition and rhetoric, and its intended audience is faculty members serving on hiring committees.