- Do not list your elementary, junior high, and high schools on your vita under "Education." We do not care that you were the valedictorian of your 8th-grade class. We are laughing at you.
- Even if you really believe it, avoid saying anything like this in your research philosophy:
"I believe that doing experiments is a waste of time. A scientist can produce any pattern of results he or she wants, depending on how the experiment is designed... If I have to do experiments to obtain a position, I suppose I would take [a long dead, discredited philosopher's] approach to studying [an antique and irrelevant problem]."
- If you stopped publishing in peer-reviewed outlets in 1995, do not try to convince us that you have made transformational discoveries since then. We can read.
- You will not be hired with tenure at any research university on the basis of your teaching evaluations. I do not want to read every comment that every student ever made about your infotainment-packed lectures. Do not include them in your application materials.
- Who are these people writing your letters? Doesn't anyone in your field know what you're doing? Your minister? Are you serious?
Friday, January 18, 2008
No, you will not be hearing from us.
I am on the search committee for a new chair in another department. The applications for department chairs are, I must say, much less impressive than the ones you see for a regular tenured position. Here are some tips, if you are considering applying for a position in an empirically-oriented department at LSU (or anywhere):
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21 comments:
Did you get any CVs in crayon?
Okay, this is a bit off topic, but since you brought it up (in a manner of speaking), if I'll be looking for a tenure-track job, should I include any of my fabulous teaching evaluations in the packet to begin with?
Depends on the job, TIA. If you're applying to teaching colleges, yes, but don't just xerox the comment forms and staple 150 sheets to your cv. Write up a thoughtful summary and include it in your teaching statement. If you're going the R1 university route, include an abbreviated version.
One person sent the equivalent of all the scantron sheets for hir course evaluations. Insane, really.
Oh, wow. I just assumed that it would only occur to one to send a summary. Thanks for the advice!
But what if my minister says I'm the very best at rationalizing my CrEvo stance???
The hell?!?! Why does the chair position draw more unqualified crackpots than the tenure-track positions?
FWIW, we're doing something similar now, but the position is advertised on USAJobs. And some people just reeeaaaallllllyyy want to work for the government. Fortunately HR culls the herd before we ever see the application packs. Or maybe that's UNfortunately, because then we don't get to make fun of them.
An fyi...I'm a grad student in a humanities/social science department at a relatively well-known technical university. And I know that when we do faculty searches, this department does want to see all the teaching evaluations - every blessed scantron sheet. They also assume people in other places will want to see them (and are advising us poor, silly doctoral candidates to save them for such things).
I don't know why. I've never wanted to wade through them all, and I doubt that anyone else here does either. Perhaps it's just to assure ourselves that they exist? (Independent verification...) Pity I didn't save anything but summaries from when I was a high school teacher. I'm sure any search committee would love to see the "Ms. N rocks!" and little pictures they used to draw for me.
At my R1 we need teaching evals for a tenure case after the hire is approved, but we don't want them with the app.
From the searches I've seen here (a highly competitive R1 with a lot of top 10 graduate programs), there seems to be a nationwide shortage in qualified and acceptable candidates for department chair positions. We've managed to hire great chairs, but the applicant pool is not as deep as folks might think. For our chair hire several years ago, we brought in 5 candidates for public talks -- 2 were great (and one of those got the job) but 3 of those talks were a total waste of my time. It made me wonder -- the top 5 went this far down? I've seed/heard similar stories in other units since then.
I sat on a search committee for a tenure-track position last year, and we asked for student evaluations or, if the evaluations were done on scantron sheets, for the summary. The evaluations were a complete waste of time, and nearly every one consisted of something along the lines of "This class was really good. Mr./Ms./Dr. Blah Blah Blah has a really good command of the material." You don't say? They've earned a doctoral degree in the subject or will be receiving it in a few months, and you say they know the material? Will wonders never cease!
Another five percent were students bitching about how their was too much reading. At the end of the search committee I felt really bad for most of the people we interviewed.
Ugh. AP, you have my deepest sympathy...and empathy. Sounds like this one will be Search Committee Hell.
I just got done with several months of work on a search committee, though my experience was much nicer.
I could see where the teaching evals would be annoying, but I don't think it's ridiculous that they would think you'd care that they value students-- especially if they will be teaching at all. I would hope even "research universities" would want good teachers who value students.
"value students"? What on earth is that "value students" nonsense? When did that become popular?
The job of a university teacher / professor is to demonstrate what the students are supposed to know. With rigor and precision. The job is not about spoon feeding rich spoiled brats.
Students are adults. The should act as such. It is up to them to learn what they are supposed to know in whatever way that works for them. It is their job, to figure out how to learn after being told what to learn.
Searches for higher administrative positions get even worse. It seems that things get less and less demanding the further up you go?
Re: natalie's comment: So would it be extra impressive if I included the "Ms. X has a great command, blah, blah, blah" comments for the classes that I am in no way qualified to teach, but that my department keeps dumping in my lap? :)
Cero,
It isn't necessarily the case that things are less demanding the higher up in admin one goes. The required skill set and temperament are different. Unfortunately, some people look at their colleagues and think 'I am not as good a scientist, teacher, mentor, ... ' as that person so maybe I will make a good admin!
We always get three types of candidates who are good at all aspects of academic life, those who are reasonable academics but good managers and those who are just feel 'uanppreciated'.
I recently read an applicant's vita that included their current salary. I found this very odd and I don't recommend it. But if everyone included their salaries on their vitas, it would certainly make being on a search committee much more interesting.
When the Academy of Fine Art in Berlin wanted to hire the sculptor Fritz Wotruba (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fritz_Wotruba
they asked for letters of refrence. He did not like it - he thought he was hired for his work - which an art school should be able to judge.
So he supplied a letter from his wife - Describing him as a very nice man, but also as a heavy alcoholic who is completely drung by 10am. They still made him an offer...
I don't know, anon., committees I've been on have laughed as hard at resumes talking about things like being valedictorian of an 8th grade class, being a good cook, etc. when the application is for VP as when it's just for department chair.
I'm on a hiring committee right now at a teaching college, and we like seeing teaching evals in moderation--keep it down to one page or put it discretely in the back. And put in some of the recent summary numbers, not just the "my teacher rocks" comments.
texasinafrica: The search committee was for a history professor, and the colleges that our applicants taught at did tend to give medievalists the American history survey course and ask people study the history of medicine to teach introduction to Western civilization. I suppose that's analogous to asking a theoretical physicist to cover the mechanical engineering introduction or something.
Most hilariously for us on the search committee, though, is that my college is very small (class size average is about 10), has no TAs, and is a private, liberal arts school. But the bulk of the applications we got were from people who's student teaching had almost entirely consisted of American history survey courses at huge universities. Their teaching philosophies tended to boil down to "how can I craft a test that will catch everyone who didn't do the reading or show up." At least one person wrote that they thought class discussions were completely useless and implied that they didn't have a very high opinion of their students. Not that I don't understand where they're coming from, but why on earth would you write that in your CV?
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