All my friends, faculty, and family are constantly asking me, "How did it go?" As I discussed earlier, I think it's nearly impossible for the candidate to know how she is being appraised. Most of the time, I reply with a shrug, "Okay? Pretty well? I guess?" Then there are visits where I can be pretty sure things did not go okay, pretty well, I know.
Last week, I visited a small liberal arts college in the Northeast. I am a finalist for a campus-wide diversity fellowship; I am up against 3 other finalists, all from different fields across the college. The Classics department is tiny, so they are thrilled by the prospect of having another faculty member to offer a few courses and raise the profile of the department among their colleagues. All this to say: it's in their interest to help me get this fellowship, right? Which would involve clearly communicating expectations, right? And yet, I didn't find out until I had arrived on campus for the interview with the fellowship committee that I was being pitched as someone who could also cover for Art History and whose courses "deal substantially with post-Renaissance Western art, literary studies, and film studies." Excuse me? I mean, yes, I would be more than happy to incorporate those fields into my classes – but you probably should have warned me ahead of time. So that, when I'm asked about how I would use films in my class on Heracles, I do not respond with Disney's Hercules and Arnold Schwarzenegger's great classic of cinema, Hercules in New York. Only half of the fellowship committee came to my talk, which is just as well: two images miraculously disappeared from my powerpoint presentation, so I had to act them out with my body. Academic dignity may have been lost, but surely I earned a few points for enthusiasm.
Then there are schools that clearly communicate their expectations, but they are surprisingly specific. From a research university in the south, I received this email today: "[Your job talk] should be pitched to the faculty and should represent your original contributions to scholarship. It should be not less than 49 minutes and not more than 51 minutes. There will be a question period after it." My talk, as it stands, is not more than 44 minutes, and not less than 42. At least I know how to edit it now!
Last week, I visited a small liberal arts college in the Northeast. I am a finalist for a campus-wide diversity fellowship; I am up against 3 other finalists, all from different fields across the college. The Classics department is tiny, so they are thrilled by the prospect of having another faculty member to offer a few courses and raise the profile of the department among their colleagues. All this to say: it's in their interest to help me get this fellowship, right? Which would involve clearly communicating expectations, right? And yet, I didn't find out until I had arrived on campus for the interview with the fellowship committee that I was being pitched as someone who could also cover for Art History and whose courses "deal substantially with post-Renaissance Western art, literary studies, and film studies." Excuse me? I mean, yes, I would be more than happy to incorporate those fields into my classes – but you probably should have warned me ahead of time. So that, when I'm asked about how I would use films in my class on Heracles, I do not respond with Disney's Hercules and Arnold Schwarzenegger's great classic of cinema, Hercules in New York. Only half of the fellowship committee came to my talk, which is just as well: two images miraculously disappeared from my powerpoint presentation, so I had to act them out with my body. Academic dignity may have been lost, but surely I earned a few points for enthusiasm.
Then there are schools that clearly communicate their expectations, but they are surprisingly specific. From a research university in the south, I received this email today: "[Your job talk] should be pitched to the faculty and should represent your original contributions to scholarship. It should be not less than 49 minutes and not more than 51 minutes. There will be a question period after it." My talk, as it stands, is not more than 44 minutes, and not less than 42. At least I know how to edit it now!
dearest, you're so humble :) amazing girl. also this post is hilarious!!
ReplyDeletei'm rooting for you!
ReplyDeletehaha... what is the point of being so specific? do you have a stopwatch on you that you can glance at occasionally?
ReplyDelete