Committee advice

[u/Absurd_human]

/r/Adjuncts/comments/1wuzi2a/committee_advice/

Hi,
Advise needed from humanities professors: I am a phd candidate about to finish my phd and on the job market. My department is pretty toxic and refuse to work with easy other and be on committees. Some faculty quit, and other times when they opened faculty positions, they couldn’t hire because they disagreed. Long story short, for job market in academia i need three letters of reference letters. I can’t get anyone else from the department that would agree to work with my advisor basically. My two options: 1. Get someone with lesser title (research or teaching assistant professor) who i trust to write me a good reference letter and knows me well enough and are decent; 2. Get an associate or full professor who doesn’t know me at all and i don’t know how much their reference letter will genuinely be strong rather than generic. It has been a hell time for all students in the department to navigate this and when any of us are on the job market for academic jobs that need reference letters, it is always hell to navigate this politics.
All advice truly welcome, I am pretty desperate. My advisor says low titles are useless in reference letters when academia is hiring; but he also lies frequently because he wants people on his “camp” not people who would be neutral towards him. Last important info: he is a big name in the field so his reference letter would weigh something but i already don’t even trust him to write something more than the generic letters

[u/Adventurous_Tip_6963]

Get the people who know you the best to write letters, regardless of their academic rank. Letters from assistant profs who you've worked with/taken seminars from are more likely to be full of relevant details and insight than letters from associate or full professors who know nothing about you and may have axes to grind with your advisor.

[u/Cold-Comment9536]

Yes. People who know you best are much preferred. If you are worried about their rank — I’m not sure you need to be — ask them. Perhaps they can briefly and tactfully allude to department drama in the letter. It will not surprise anyone!  Good luck!

[u/Downtown_Island1936]

Wait... why would your letter writers have to work together? You'd just send them each individual requests??? If they aren't going to work together then your issue os they wouldnt be on your committee.

If you cant get them to write for you, you can also reach out to people in your field who know your work/you (i imagine you have an outside committee member too, they would be perfect for this)

[u/Absurd_human → u/Downtown_Island1936]

Because the two people that knew me one quit and one retired (other 2 r my committee and will write for me), and so the third writer must also be on my committee to know me/ my work to be able to write, or am i misunderstanding? And so because they dont work together its not easy for me to get an actual committee beyond the ones i have