Tenure-track position in clinical psychology at GVSU

[karsteam]

Position Title: Assistant Professor of Psychology (Clinical)

The Psychology Department at Grand Valley State University seeks a full time, tenure track Assistant Professor to begin Fall 2025. Applicants should hold a doctoral degree in Clinical Psychology or a closely related field. Candidates who specialize in areas that will diversify expertise in the department and complement scholarly interests among current faculty are especially encouraged to apply. Teaching responsibilities may include undergraduate courses in Psychopathology, Developmental Psychopathology, Introductory Psychology, and Research Methods. We are seeking candidates who wish to participate in creating professionally-relevant, high-impact learning experiences for undergraduate students (e.g., research, community collaborations). Learn more and apply online at www.gvsu.edu/jobs/.

Grand Valley State University is an EOE which includes protected veterans and individuals with disabilities. See Affirmative Action/Equal Employment Opportunity. TDD Callers: Call Michigan Relay Center at 711 (in State) or 1-800-833-7833 (out of State).

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[ThatPsyGuy]

Is $70,000 typical for starting faculty positions?

Because that's honestly disheartening.

 

[WisNeuro]

Is $70,000 typical for starting faculty positions?

Because that's honestly disheartening.

Especially for smaller or medium sized colleges, unfortunately not that far off from what I've seen in the region. Unfortunate is definitely a good sentiment for it. Luckily that's the minimum salary, but still. Hopefully the benefits are at least good, but that'd still be a huge pay cut for most of us clinical peeps.

 

[psych.meout]

That's not much more than I make at an AMC post doc and I'm not even in a HCOL area. I also have great benefits, like free PPO health insurance and a bunch of other benefits.

 

[Sanman]

Looks like this is for a 3-3 course load minimum with additional scholarship or service. Seems similar to what I have seen. Agreed that the pay cut is large for clinical focused people. Especially after a few years of licensed clinical experience.

 

[PsyDr]

“Wanna make $6k more than the average US worker with double the education? Do we have the job for you!”

 

[psych.meout]

“Wanna make $6k more than the average US worker with double the education? Do we have the job for you!”

"And have that job be tenuous until you are able to get tenure or be kicked out after a few years for not publishing enough while you work for a pittance?"

 

[Pragma]

These are usually for 9 month contracts so that makes it a bit less drastic, if people truly use the time off.

 

[Sanman]

“Wanna make $6k more than the average US worker with double the education? Do we have the job for you!”

Are you suggesting academia is not the path to riches? Indiana Jones had me believing you sort of show up to lectures between treasure hunts.

 

[Therapist4Chnge]

Nah. Academia has become predatory at a lot of places, at least at AMCs, I can’t really speak to liberal arts R2/R3 options. The “lifestyle” sold to some 20-30yr ago is vastly different than those jobs now,

 

[Sanman]

Nah. Academia has become predatory at a lot of places, at least at AMCs, I can’t really speak to liberal arts R2/R3 options. The “lifestyle” sold to some 20-30yr ago is vastly different than those jobs now,

I don't find academia to be very different from private practice or VA as the years go by. Everything comes down to dollars and cents. As reimbursement for clinical work goes down and grant funding has been tougher to come by in certain areas, a lot of the non-reimbursement related tasks feel like volunteer work that no one really cares about.

 

[futureapppsy2]

“Wanna make $6k more than the average US worker with double the education? Do we have the job for you!”

If you want to talk insanely low salaries, in Hawaii (very high COL), it's not uncommon for people in professional (white-collar, degreed) jobs to make $40k or less per year.

 

[Sanman]

I started off significantly higher than that in my first clinical job over 10 years ago and was over the $100k mark in two years. Most clinical jobs I see now are starting folks at $100-125k. This is with a much less competitive grad school CV and no research post-doc.

 

[Ollie123]

The "income inequality" issues of broader society also seem pretty clearly reflected in academia. If you are at a small teaching-focused institute, 70k is not unusual and actually better than some places will pay. I'm not doing it myself, but I actually don't think it is necessarily a bad gig. Something like a 3-3 load isn't bad if research/service expectations are low (and they typically are at those sorts of institutions). College towns are usually relatively inexpensive. Clinicians have easy opportunities to arrange multiple income streams so you can pull in more if desired. If therapy-focused you can't easily ramp up during summer and ramp down during semesters, but an assessment practice is more doable. I do think its a recipe for a pretty chill, reasonably secure middle-class lifestyle. You're wildly undercompensated for your education level, but money isn't everything.

If you are a talented researcher and willing to play the grants game, you can still make substantially more. I'm still "Early Career" (albeit just barely) and should be closing on 200k in salary next year. Nice benefits package on top of that and consulting opportunities could push my gross even higher. This is "good" but isn't an absurd salary among my colleagues and I know plenty making similar amounts and several making more. I'd argue its still underpaid since a job with this amount of responsibility/stress in the corporate world would pay substantially more, but would be less self-directed and likely more top-down pressure. To each their own...

 

[R. Matey]

“Wanna make $6k more than the average US worker with double the education? Do we have the job for you!”

"Enjoy driving a used car in a red state? Have you thought about academia?"

ETA: I'm largely kidding, but academia seems like a tough gig unless you're able to go AMC route and even then it seems a bit dicey. Our dept. was recruiting research faculty a few years ago and barely had any biters. The speculation was that many were being swept up by industry in response to the siren song of cash plus work-life balance.

 

[Sanman]

The "income inequality" issues of broader society also seem pretty clearly reflected in academia. If you are at a small teaching-focused institute, 70k is not unusual and actually better than some places will pay. I'm not doing it myself, but I actually don't think it is necessarily a bad gig. Something like a 3-3 load isn't bad if research/service expectations are low (and they typically are at those sorts of institutions). College towns are usually relatively inexpensive. Clinicians have easy opportunities to arrange multiple income streams so you can pull in more if desired. If therapy-focused you can't easily ramp up during summer and ramp down during semesters, but an assessment practice is more doable. I do think its a recipe for a pretty chill, reasonably secure middle-class lifestyle. You're wildly undercompensated for your education level, but money isn't everything.

If you are a talented researcher and willing to play the grants game, you can still make substantially more. I'm still "Early Career" (albeit just barely) and should be closing on 200k in salary next year. Nice benefits package on top of that and consulting opportunities could push my gross even higher. This is "good" but isn't an absurd salary among my colleagues and I know plenty making similar amounts and several making more. I'd argue its still underpaid since a job with this amount of responsibility/stress in the corporate world would pay substantially more, but would be less self-directed and likely more top-down pressure. To each their own...

I think this a fair take and I don't want it to seem like I am suggesting that this one posting is out of line. I think this is in line with the market for smaller colleges. As someone who would have considered something like this early career (and did but was not very competitive as a rather average doctoral student), the gap between clinical work and academia seems to be getting worse and is not because clinical work is being compensated increasingly well. The stagnant pay and poor outlook at smaller, more teaching focused, colleges really is being eaten away by inflation and modern costs. The average home price in Allendale, MI is $379k. A small home, a Volvo, and a tweed jacket are a stretch on that salary. This is before factoring in any lingering student loans. That our degree offers us a lucrative part-time opportunity is not something that I think should explain an underpaid full-time job.

There is still a market for talented researchers and there likely always will be. However, as someone interested primarily in teaching, I have found that I may not be able to afford to take such a role until my house is paid off and my retirement funded. At that point, the juice may not be worth the squeeze as I am not sure I will want to deal with the strings as someone who is financially secure.

 

[R. Matey]

The stagnant pay and poor outlook at smaller, more teaching focused, colleges really is being eaten away by inflation and modern costs. The average home price in Allendale, MI is $379k. A small home, a Volvo, and a tweed jacket are a stretch on that salary. This is before factoring in any lingering student loans.

The local SLACs also start around 70k/year for a 3-3 while median home price is ~$520k. That's not math I would want to live with.

 

[psych.meout]

The problem for me is that it's not like college is getting any cheaper. This are getting exorbitantly more expensive, even for state schools, but this money is clearly not going towards faculty or anyone else who is teaching or generating value. The money is being squandered on all these superfluous deans and other admin people who are money sinks for little incremental benefit for anyone but themselves.

 

[AcronymAllergy]

The problem for me is that it's not like college is getting any cheaper. This are getting exorbitantly more expensive, even for state schools, but this money is clearly not going towards faculty or anyone else who is teaching or generating value. The money is being squandered on all these superfluous deans and other admin people who are money sinks for little incremental benefit for anyone but themselves.

I'm not sure of the proportion, but there's also been a bit of an "arms race" as far as facilities go, with schools spending millions and millions of dollars on things like fitness centers, student centers, dorms, etc., to try to woo prospective students to attend.

And yes, a lot of the cost cutting efforts seem to have been directedly primarily at faculty and support staff. Trying to bring on my adjuncts and instructors vs. professors, etc.

 

[Ollie123]

Teaching as a whole is horribly undervalued in our society. Early childhood education barely exceeds minimum wage many places, K-12 teachers make garbage outside wealthy districts. Heck even in medicine you are generally going to be "giving up" income to take on an educational role - the base is just high enough that decision-making can be driven by how you want to spend your time without having to worry about feeding a family.

I would be genuinely curious to see the budget spreadsheets for major universities. I assume there is some way to get these for public institutions (albeit maybe not to the degree of detail I'd want to see), but I've never actually looked into it. Reddit, academic twitter and the like seem to blame the proliferation of "associate dean" roles, but I actually suspect these are a pretty modest hit to university budgets in the grand scheme of things. This isn't the corporate world and most places they'll still be "reasonable" in my eyes (500k?) for what they entail. I'd guess a lot of it goes to what AA said, as well as the proverbial low-mid level "bull**** jobs" that exist for the sole purpose of the mindless bureaucracy that has run rampant.

 

[docloufan]

“Wanna make $6k more than the average US worker with double the education? Do we have the job for you!”

This is the best response...by far. It just wont be able to continue. "Visiting Assistant professor"...maybe???

Asking people to work full-time for 9 months in the hopes that they will get 2nd and 3rd income streams that only then match a public elementary school principle salary is beyond ridiculous.

You get a doctorate just to try to piece together multiple "gigs" to have a middle class live style??? I don't think so. Those are the extras, son. The extras...

I am sure GVSU is great and all but you have to understand that this cannot continue. No one will do this in the coming years. At least no clinical psych candidate/Ph.D.

 

[R. Matey]

I would be genuinely curious to see the budget spreadsheets for major universities. I assume there is some way to get these for public institutions (albeit maybe not to the degree of detail I'd want to see), but I've never actually looked into it

TAMU's budget, as one example:

Executive Summary:
https://assets.system.tamus.edu/fil...udget-Summary/FY2024/2024ExecutiveSummary.pdf

Details:

https://budget.tamu.edu/_media/documents/.pdf/fy-2024-t-a-m-u-board-approved-operating-budget.pdf

Seems like a lot of costs are split between personnel and infrastructure (the latter I believe; that campus is enormous).

 

[MCParent]

No one will do this in the coming years. At least no clinical psych candidate/Ph.D.

agree with everything except this. Unfortunately, low pay faculty jobs and garbage clinical positions with massively sprawled corporations will continue to absorb the lower chunk of students (and some good ones who didn’t learn some important skills).

I felt a bit insulted by what I was paid as faculty but geez I now realize I kinda made away ok.

 

[docloufan]

The problem for me is that it's not like college is getting any cheaper. This are getting exorbitantly more expensive, even for state schools, but this money is clearly not going towards faculty or anyone else who is teaching or generating value. The money is being squandered on all these superfluous deans and other admin people who are money sinks for little incremental benefit for anyone but themselves.

"Dean of DEI" at the University of Cincinnati? 180k Per year????

Good God, can you imagine the outrage 20 years ago of adding this person and said salary to one of your son or daughters tuition at a state school? Unreal!

 

[futureapppsy2]

Well, be glad you didn't go into gymnastics coaching--you can literally be coaching a good third of the elite national team, including multiple Olympic, National. and World champions, and still be hosting kids' birthday parties to make ends meet.

 

[DynamicDidactic]

I do not imagine we will be seeing too many other job postings from this account on here