On the Job Market
For a College Teaching Position

Before Applying
The Application
The Interview
Questions for You to Ask
The Offer
Sample Campus Interview Schedules

by Sue Rogala

(suggestions from one very happy but exhausted grad student)

The following is a compilation of information and suggestions based on my personal experiences on the job market for a teaching position. I targeted schools that are very teaching-focused (e.g., at one campus interview, the search chair told me, “there is absolutely no pressure whatsoever to publish for tenure”… where do I sign??), and are probably not nationally known. I received 5 interview invites (1 phone interview that turned into nothing and 4 campus interviews, one of which I declined after accepting an offer from a different school). So take the info with a grain of salt (or sand or whatever). The info and suggestions are occasionally accompanied by personal stories to keep things amusing.

 

BEFORE APPLYING

Do you have any contacts at small teaching colleges, teaching-focused state schools, community colleges? USE THEM!! Now’s the time to reconnect with your lib arts undergrad professors (if you went to a lib arts college, that is!)

Have at least a teaching philosophy (if not a whole portfolio) prepared.

Tell all faculty in your area/dept that you are on the job market (unless you’re not comfortable doing so because of lack of support for grad students pursuing teaching-focused careers). You’d be surprised by the contacts they may have.

Personal story: By the time I had already interviewed and received an offer from Mount St. Mary’s College in L.A., I found out that one of the faculty in our department (in my specific area, no less!) went to grad school at UCLA with the search chair at MSMC. The chair had actually called the UM faculty member to ask about a different candidate! (I imagine it was someone from UCLA) She didn’t ask about me, because she wasn’t sure if the faculty member knew me (which I thought was actually pretty considerate). When I found this out, the faculty member here said, "oh – I didn’t even know you were on the job market!" I’m heading to MSMC in the fall, so luckily it didn’t end up hurting my chances, but what a missed opportunity!

 

THE APPLICATION

Tailor, tailor, tailor the cover letter. Should teaching or research come first? Should they be integrated? How much emphasis on service to the dept/college/university? How much emphasis on applied work? Bug the crap out of as many people as possible to read it and give you feedback.

You may want to have two or three CVs (no more than three or you’ll go bonkers!!) – figure out what versions will be most useful (teaching highlighted, research highlighted, emphasize both equally…)

The portfolio. I sent this to every school, even if they didn’t request it in the ad. That’s a tough decision, though – will it indicate how truly devoted you are to teaching, or will it just piss them off by giving them MORE stuff to read?

Give your letter-writers at least 3 weeks notice before applications are due (and pad the actual application deadline by about a week). You may want to ask them what info they would like from you, but at the very least, you should provide the job advertisement and your cover letter (and probably your CV). One week before apps are due, send a friendly reminder email.

 

THE INTERVIEW (I provided my 3 campus interview schedules at the end of this file, fyi)

After you’ve been invited, but before you go, ask the chair (or whomever contacts you) for more information on the college – if they have any publications or flyers or other information that is not available on the web. Not only is this useful info to have, but it’s also one of a bizillion ways to let them know you’re really serious about the position.

READ AND REFLECT ON THEIR MISSION STATEMENT (very important for the smaller schools). Lots of the lib arts schools, esp the ones that aren’t nationally known, have a religious affiliation. If that matters to you, you often can tell how strong that affiliation is just by reading the mission statement.

Scour their website – find out what resources they have for faculty and students at the departmental level and at the college level. For example, if they have a ‘multicultural initiatives program’ that interests you, jot it down and bring it up with the appropriate person (probably the provost, dean, or president).

Even if you only get one interview, check out the websites of other similar schools – the amount of info on websites varies widely, and there might be info on another school’s website that is of interest to you, but that is not available on the website of the school you’re visiting (e.g., study abroad programs, a teaching support center)…

A few (out of about a bizillion) questions to consider ahead of time:

• If you could teach any class in the world, what would it be? (be prepared to answer specifically, and in terms of both course content and classroom dynamics – e.g., teaching techniques, level of the students, etc. At one school, I was actually asked what specific readings I would assign, even though I’d never taught the course)
• Describe your greatest success/challenge in teaching. (if you have one story that answers both – a difficult situation that you managed to turn into a success – that’s perfect)
• What are your strengths/weaknesses as a teacher? (be prepared to back these up with specific examples – in one interview I said that one of my strengths is my storytelling teaching style, and the dean of undergrad students enthusiastically said, "Oh, great – tell us a story" and he was serious.)
• Describe what it’s like to be a student in your class (I got this in a telephone interview, which are horrible to begin with, and it completely took me off guard)
• How do you handle students who challenge your authority? (answering that you’ve never had a student challenge your authority is not a good idea)
• If you had a student in your class who was very motivated, was clearly trying very hard, but was struggling with the material, what would you do?
• How do/would you integrate teaching and research? (this seems particularly important for those schools with heavy teaching loads but that also have an interest in at least some research)
• (if you have not yet finished your dissertation): be prepared to give specific details about your dissertation progress and pretty much sign in blood that you’ll be done before the appt. begins. This is usually very important to the provost/dean/president, and you already should have discussed this with your dissertation chair, who should be willing to verify that you’ll be done in time.

The teaching demonstration (things to consider):

• Choosing your topic (you probably don’t want to use your dissertation topic because it’s too specific for the purpose of the teaching demo) vs. having it assigned (be prepared for a wide range of possibilities, anything in your department goes). If it’s assigned, they should give you the topic at least a week in advance so you can prepare.
• Size and length of class –find out in advance
• Nature of class – find out in advance
  • Regularly scheduled class, or random students & faculty? (IMHO, the former is much better – the latter is less of a natural classroom setting, but you probably won’t have a choice)
  • Who will be observing / sitting in? Will observers be participating/asking questions?
  • If a regularly scheduled class – what teaching style are students in the class accustomed to? (i.e., will a completely discussion-based lesson freak them out?)
    • Find out ahead of time what text or readings they use for the course, and get a copy – or have the chair or class instructor fax you pages from the chapter/topic you’ll be covering.
    • If at all possible – use the first 5-10 minutes to "warm them up" – share a little about yourself, what you love about the topic, try to relate to them a bit if you’re able to do that naturally
    • These are very time consuming to prepare for – in my case, for three interviews in 3_ weeks, none of the topics overlapped, nor were the length, size, or nature of the classes similar. I spent the roughly 1 week between each interview mainly preparing the lessons.

Other things to consider:

• Ask the chair (or whomever you’re in contact with prior to the interview) to meet separately with students, and specifically with undergrads if there’s also a grad program. This has at least 4 advantages:
  1. The chair’s immediate reaction to the request will tell you a lot about the values of the dept/school
  2. Their enthusiasm and amount of effort in accommodating this request will also tell you a lot about their values
  3. It gives you a chance to get to meet the students and get their perspective on their educational experiences.
  4. If you can do it before your teaching demo and can meet with at least a few of the students who will be there for the demo, you’ve got an opportunity for some ice-breaking.

• At smaller schools, be prepared to meet with provosts, presidents, deans, etc. – know how to talk about the school/college and not just the department.
• Most faculty at UM will probably tell you to be prepared to be ‘wined and dined’ and to be on your feet during meals and cocktail parties… Most small schools (I’m not talking about the rich and nationally known ones) don’t have the money to do all that, so there were far fewer group meals than I expected – and I wouldn’t really say that the school cafeteria lunch counted as being ‘wined and dined.’

QUESTIONS FOR YOU TO ASK:

• Describe the tenure decision process (e.g., specifically, what does the committee look at, what information do they collect, what information does a tenure candidate have to provide, what role do departmental faculty play in the tenure process? – i.e., does the chair sit on the tenure decision committee?)
• What exactly does their ‘research component’ entail? (most teaching-focused schools have very broad definitions of research – but expectations for publication still vary widely)
• What kind of mentoring exists for new faculty?
• Monetary support for attending conferences?
• What are summers like? (opportunities to teach or consult for extra $? Completely off? Research?)
• Service/committee expectations
• Availability of equipment you’ll need to teach (e.g., lcd projector) and do research (lab equipment)
• Interdisciplinary teaching and research opportunities

For the provost/dean/president:

• What is the college’s strategic plan for the next five years? (find out what a ‘strategic plan’ is, if you don’t already know)
• Any questions you have about the mission statement.
• Any questions you have about interdisciplinary teaching/research
• Questions about study abroad programs.

These don’t necessarily have to be asked during an ‘official’ interview period – but you’ll have opportunities throughout the day to gather information.

Also: be sure to check out the The Career Center and the Chronicle of Higher Education websites.

 

THE OFFER

They never make an offer by the date they tell you. OK, maybe never is too strong, but I freaked out about it for nothing and couldn’t concentrate on dissertation work or anything else. They told me they’d have a decision by ‘next Friday.’ At 8pm on Friday (i.e., 5pm pacific time) I flipped out, decided I was stuck here another year and started looking into adjunct positions at local community colleges (which are in abundance, by the way). But you’re probably not that neurotic.

The offer usually comes from a dean or provost. At this point – actually, once they invite you for an interview – you should think of the search chair and dept. faculty ON YOUR SIDE – they want you there. Contact the chair with any additional questions that have come up since the interview, or questions you didn’t get to ask at the interview. Sometimes the chair or other faculty can even help w/ suggestions about what is typically negotiable and what’s not.

Speaking of which, depending on the size & wealth of the school making you the offer, you’ll find job negotiation advice from UM faculty good intentioned but possibly not very useful. Smaller schools (and even larger federally funded schools) tend to be more strapped for cash and less likely to have negotiating flexibility.

If you are negotiating an offer from a very teaching-focused school, you may want to think very carefully before requesting a course-load reduction, despite what UM faculty will advise. Think about how that message will be received. If you’re concerned about the teaching load, you might consider consulting the search or dept. chair instead, to see if they can give you two or three sections of the same course or otherwise make it a bit easier during the first year.

Don’t let the faculty here get you down!! I’m not one of those who believe that UM faculty are unsupportive of teaching focused careers – my perspective is that they simply don’t have the experience with smaller teaching focused schools to provide guidance, help, connections, etc., but that for the most part, they really do want to help. But sometimes those nasty underlying values get in the way. Example: if you are really excited about a position with a heavy teaching load (mine will be 4 courses per term) and you share this info with faculty whom you believe support teaching and whom you trust (I even lied to them and told them 3 per term), don’t be surprised if even they express shock and discourage you to take the position, which, in their minds, they are honestly doing in your best interest. So that’s my optimistic perspective.

**My best advice to deal with this: avoid becoming defensive at all costs (once you have to start justifying your interest/passion for teaching, you might start doubting it yourself), stay in touch with family and friends who understand what you really want to do and will always support your interest in teaching.

In the end: GO WITH YOUR HEART! (school X may have offered $3,000 higher salary than school Y, but when you picture yourself at each place 5 years from now – which one feels right?)

A personal story:

At the end of my interview at Mount St. Mary’s (2^nd out of the 3), I came back to MI and told everyone "I am in love with this school," and went on to rave about why it was perfect for me. My third interview, and first offer, was from Southern New Hampshire Univ (despite it’s name, a small lib arts school) – the interview there had gone well, but I wasn’t as dazzled as I was by MSMC. Worrying that I wouldn’t get an offer from anywhere else, I started ‘building up’ SNHU in my mind – making it ok for me to accept the offer. But then came the offer from Mount St. Mary’s. By then, however, I was pretty confident that I would be happy at SNHU, and SNHU offered me a better salary and was willing to negotiate, while MSMC was not (and was in L.A., while SNHU was in my ideal place – New England!). So when I told friends and faculty about what a tough choice I had, almost all of them laughed and said, "yeah – right!!!" and I couldn’t figure out what they meant - until I finally sat back and remembered how I felt after visiting each place, and what life might be like for me at each place in the next 5 years. Duh. What a no-brainer – I’m off to L.A.!

 

Sample Campus Interview Schedules

Here are the schedules from my 3 campus visits to small liberal arts schools – just to give you an idea – it might be interesting to note the differences and similarities. The first two made me offers, and I accepted the first one. I’ve added some notes in a few places, in bold italics, for a bit of additional information. I took out names for privacy reasons…

Liberal Arts College

Schedule for Susan Rogala

February 24-26

February 24, 2002

2:03 p.m.   Arrive at LAX – Northwest flight 933

Holiday Inn Brentwood/Bel Air

Confirmation # 65763908

February 25, 2002

9:30 a.m.   Pick up at hotel

10:00-10:30 Meet with Psychology students

Campus Center

(note from Sue: I requested this ahead of time, and the chair thought it was a wonderful idea. Even though only a couple of students were there when we arrived, the chair ran around the building looking for psy students to come and talk with me. She even gave students a sort of evaluation to complete after meeting me)

11:00-11:20 Chair of Faculty Status Committee

11:30-12:30 Lunch with Search Committee

12:40-1:40 p.m.  Teaching Demonstration – H404

Moral Development & Social  Relationships
Class enrollment approx. 10

(note from Sue: the regular instructor and the search committee sat in the back of the class and took notes while I taught the entire 1 hr class)

2:00-2:30 p.m.  Meet with Director of Weekend College Program

3:00-3:30 p.m.  Meet with College Provost

5:00 p.m.  Dinner with Search Committee

February 26, 2002

6:00 a.m.?   Depart from hotel to LAX

Northwest flight 332

(note from Sue: there wasn’t an official interview time set with the faculty b/c this campus interview was preceded by a telephone interview with the committee – but I had ample time with them to ask and answer other questions).

 

We’re Hiring University

SUSAN ROGALA

Schedule for campus visit

Arriving: March 4, 2002, 3:22 pm, Northwest Airlines FLT 690

Campus visit - March 5, 2002

8:00 – Arrive on campus and meet briefly with the chair of the search committee

8:30 – 9:15 meet with Director of the Wellness Center

Anytown University

ITINERARY

Susan Rogala

Friday, February 15, 2002

8:45 a.m.  Arrive on Campus

9:00-9:30 a.m.  Meet with Search Committee – McAuley 207

(note from Sue: this was my ‘official’ interview with the committee; 2 committee members showed up late)

9:30-10:30 a.m. Presentation and Discussion – O’Hare 210

(note from Sue: this was my teaching demo, but it wasn’t part of a regularly scheduled class, so there was a random mixture of students and faculty, with faculty participating in the discussion – it was very strange!)

10:45-11:30 a.m.  Brief Tour of Campus

11:30- 1:00 p.m.  Lunch with Psychology Dept. Faculty & Search Committee – President’s Dining Room – Miley

1:00 –2:00 p.m.  Meet with Vice President for Academic Affairs/Dean of Faculty– McAuley 206

2:00-3:00 p.m.  Meet with Dean of Undergraduate Studies – McAuley 207

(note from Sue: although I requested to meet with students, the chair didn’t seem to think it would be possible, and nothing ever came of it, even though I mentioned that the interview day ended at 3 and I would be around until 8pm and I’d be happy just meeting for a half an hour with a few students over coffee – no dice)