Job Searching

I found a fifty-word teaching philosophy at So You Want to Teach?, and since I am working on my cv and philosophy and so forth, I decided I would try it. Here’s my first (and maybe last) attempt at describing my practical approach to teaching:

Learning is fun and reading and writing are essential skills. Because practice increases competence, students practice a lot. They read and analyze; they write and revise their work. Assignments have clear real-world applications and I model how to read or write the assignments. In addition, questions or prewriting helps guide them through the topic before they begin writing.

I intended to begin by enumerating the ways in which my search for a full-time faculty position is unique. I expected it to be a more statistical list than Browning’s “How Do I Love Thee?” and a much more modern one. But then I realized that everyone’s job search is unique, just in different ways, and The Incredibles came to mind. “If everyone’s special, then no one is.” Clearly I will be searching online postings, researching colleges, creating cover letters, and requesting references. But there are plenty of job-search guides for academics, and so I came full circle to the other-ness of my search for a full-time faculty position.

Fifteen years ago I left a wonderful tenure track position to raise my children. It was not an easy choice, but it was a necessary one for me. My colleagues understood and supported my decision, which was more of an encouragement than they knew. I never intended to leave academia permanently; I just had a different priority for a time.

For the last seven years, I have happily taught as an adjunct. My full-time position’s title is Mother and I teach part-time at the college because I love teaching and can’t stand to stay away. I am grateful for the time I have had with my sons as well as for the classes I have had the opportunity to teach. Since I teach mostly nights and weekends, my students have been very much like me, doing something else full-time and going to school to improve the quality of their lives. Like many of them, I am now in search of the next part of the dream.

This will be my last year as a part-time adjunct. Next year my status will change. Either I will be teaching full-time at a local college or I will join the ranks of adjuncts who piece together part-time work to make a very thin quilt of full-time employment.

For many the job search requires fifty to two hundred applications, but mine will not. I am location-restricted. At the most I can apply to eight universities, fourteen campuses from within three community college systems, and one technical college. My application maximum, then, will be twenty-three.

Those twenty-three school choices make me location-fortunate and I know it. Many other applicants in similar circumstances will be looking at a situation more like I would have had in the last place we lived, a medium-sized town with a large university and a single community college system that was always fully staffed due to the high numbers of dual-career academics. Full-time adjuncts there have to travel two or three hours in several directions.

Another plus for my job search is that I will not be making costly trips to different areas to see if a school will be a fit. I know most of the colleges and universities in the area fairly well. As an academic, any discussion of higher education has always had me perking up my ears. I know generally which universities require high research levels and which are primarily teaching colleges. I know which of the community college systems have a better reputation and which have guaranteed admission agreements with universities throughout the state. These things matter to me because what I prefer to do is teach.

Unfortunately, I learned this past spring that I did not know all the schools in my area as well as I thought. One university, with a reputation as a strong teaching college, has begun the transition to a research institute in the last two years. When that particular university advertised my dream job, I decided that my family situation could handle the stretch of one year before the optimal and I applied for the position.

While my CV was sufficient to gain two interviews, the college did not hire me and the department chair gave me a strong indication of why. “How am I going to prove to the president that you’re worth hiring when you haven’t done anything in fifteen years?” she asked.

I haven’t done anything! In the past fifteen years I have completed my language requirement for my PhD, written and defended my dissertation (which has been used by someone else for their research), and taught as an adjunct, while raising two sons, one of whom would have been in special education classes without my intervention and is now in college. That’s not exactly nothing, I thought.

Once I got over my defensiveness, I realized what the chair meant. She had been talking about the fact that I had neglected research. For the last fifteen years I haven’t even thought about conference presentations or publication. Part of that time I couldn’t have afforded to go to any conferences and I’m not sure I would have had anything to say anyway, but certainly during the last seven years I could have made the effort. And I should have. Research and the subsequent presentations and papers keep the field growing and while the continuing education classes I took might have helped me improve my teaching, I didn’t give back any insights or knowledge to the academic community.

I did not realize when I applied to the university that they were changing their focus or I might not have applied. But I am glad I did. The question, though painful at the time, catapulted me out of my complacency. I have since had two papers accepted at regional conferences and have three more in review. I also have had a national conference accepted and two that I am researching and writing now. My publications list is not yet any longer than it was at that interview, but I am writing and submitting.

The question, through my attendant response, has also helped revitalize my classroom. I have looked at my teaching to find what I have learned, what I have done well, and what best practices I have identified. I have taken those and polished them up for viewing by other instructors.

This review process has given me a new perspective and I am integrating the things I have learned back into my classroom. For example, as I was reviewing my syllabi this summer, looking for topics of interest, I realized that a favorite teaching unit had been dropped. This fall it is restored. I also found that somewhere along the way I had moved a unit from the course it belonged in and attached it willy-nilly to the course I teach. That only happened this last year and I am not quite sure how the unit migrated, but it is now off that syllabus. My teaching will be better because of my reassessment and my students will be enriched. That makes the soul searching and the presentation crafting worthwhile even if no tenure track job results.

And I have passed on what I have learned. When I was recently asked by a woman who is planning to stay home with her children what she should do to make sure she can get back into academia, I added to the general advice she had received from others of “be an adjunct” and told her that she ought to make participation in conferences a priority as well. Hopefully that will ensure she won’t have the experience of sitting in an interview and feeling unexpectedly inadequate.

Obviously I am hoping that the writing and presenting will help me secure a full-time faculty position. When I pursued a doctorate in rhetoric and composition, it was with the intention of teaching writing for the rest of my life. Even though other important responsibilities intervened, I want to go back to teaching developmental writing, freshman composition, and business writing on a regular basis. My dream job has all those plus the requirement that the faculty member teach classes in early British literature, which is my second field and my literary love. I am still pursuing my dream job.

I would prefer to teach at one college, working within that institution’s needs, and embracing the academy from a full-time position. Just as hundreds of others who are job searching this fall, I have taken steps toward securing a full-time faculty position. I have poured over the advice columns in The Chronicle to improve my chances of getting a job. I have created a teaching portfolio that outweighs my dissertation. I have updated my vita to include the conferences at which I will present. And I have started watching the job listings with the knowledge that this will be my last year as a part-time adjunct, one way or another.

SellOut, a resource for PhDs considering careers beyond the university, has a lot of good information, including FAQs and resume writing recommendations.

I am considering more seriously the work of community college teaching on a full-time basis. While there is some limitation in the class options for teaching, there is also more emphasis on teaching, which is what I love.

While I’ve been reading I’ve found a couple of things that I want to remember and share.

Many community colleges will also be looking for candidates whose experience is not limited to academe. A CV that features a broad range of experience — be it paid or volunteer — will indicate to an institution that a candidate will be able to relate to the diverse backgrounds of its students and understand their goals. We know of one English Ph.D. from a well-known research university who was actively involved in volunteer outreach to drug users and was able to easily transition into a teaching position at a community college. The volunteer work she had done was a clear indication of her ability to relate to people whose backgrounds were radically different from her own.

I had not thought of this. I have spent the last two summers as a volunteer teacher/tutor in an inner-city reading program. It’s not included anywhere on my CV.

Community colleges want to hire faculty members who can relate to students facing challenges that go beyond the classroom.

I think that my time as a voluntary adjunct helps with this. I’ve done something else “all day” and then come to teaching.

from “Do You Belong at a Community College?”

“Many PhDs who have trouble getting tenure-track jobs have similar and (chairs of hiring departments attest) commonly occurring problems: teaching experience without a research agenda; publications without teaching experience; publications and teaching experience with narrow qualifications in an overcrowded area; qualifications in a variety of needed areas without clear presentation of the candidate in the cover letter or interview; clear presentation of the candidate who is qualified for a different job than the one advertised (Green; Papp, “Stars”). 704

This was certainly my experience this last year. At one college I didn’t put forward a strong enough research agenda (because I didn’t have one) and at another I did a clear presentation for a job other than the one ultimately advertised (because I applied before they had finished their presentation. It was up but they changed the focus after my application was in) and the third one I gave too much emphasis to research, when it was a community college and not interested in that.

“Hiring departments put great stock in an individualized application letter that talks about the needs of the institution; an interview that displays interest in teaching the institutions demographic of student; the job talk; and the teaching demonstration.” (704)

I went with the individualized application letter and the interview I think went okay, except about my research agenda. However, I hadn’t realized the school was planning on doubling in size over the next five years and one of the things I said I liked about the school was that it was fairly small.

What should you do if you want a job? He recommends

“…choosing or broadening your scholarly and teaching expertise with a sense of the practical needs of institutions of different types, planning an ambitious and convincing research path, and seeking advice on how to apply for jobs from the sort of people who hire…” (704)

This is what I am trying to do in terms of actually getting conferences done and writing some papers that are published. Right now I am concentrating on conferences, but as soon as I have been accepted or turned down at all of those, I am going to work on two papers for refereed journals.

“A large proportion of applicants—sometimes one-third to one-half, hiring chairs report—remove themselves from contention with cookie-cutter application letters, interview missteps, and poorly targeted talks and teaching demonstrations.” 704

I also messed up the teaching demonstration at the SLAC. I honestly had never done one before and hadn’t attended one in over twenty years. I didn’t know what I should be doing and I didn’t find out beforehand.

from Papp, James. “Gleaning in Academe: Personal Decisions for Adjuncts and Graduate Students.” College English 64:6 (Jul. 2002): 696-709.
Published by: National Council of Teachers of English

If you are going on the job search, only buy a suit as you have an on-site interview scheduled. Or, if you are having to come from out of town, buy only one per day at the interview.

I got carried away with my job search this last year and bought three suits. Two of them I wore to two interviews at the same school. The third one I bought because it was pretty.

It’s been only three months since the interview and I got out the third suit to try on. (I have a meeting as an adjunct at the college.) It is so loose it almost falls off.

So don’t buy suits in a euphoria thinking “I’m going to get this job!” And don’t buy more than you need.

These were the telephone interview questions from a SLAC. Except for the first two they are not in the order they were asked, just in the order I was thinking of them.

Describe your philosophy of education.

How does your philosophy of education play out in your classroom?

How do you deal with students in a freshman composition course who are unable to write at all? (I asked about developmental studies, which they don’t have yet.)

Do you use Porter’s discourse theory in business writing?

How do you incorporate faith into a classroom situation? Give example if possible.

What was the point of your dissertation?

What did you learn from your dissertation that informs your teaching? (I told them that I tell my students, pick a topic you love because you are going to be writing it long after it stops being fun; what you think you are going to write about doesn’t always work; when you think it is perfect, it may not be yet.)

Can you teach 18th century literature?

Would you want to teach four freshman comp courses each semester or two of those and two of something else?

What professional organizations are you a part of?

What have you been doing for academia lately? (Teaching doesn’t count.)

Why do you want to work here? (They dissed my answer.)

Where did you hear about the opening?

Describe a typical class in your freshman comp course.

I am fairly sure there were others, but I don’t actually remember them. I should have been taking notes, but then you could hear me typing.

However, if you compare the questions from the other phone interview , you can tell there is a very different approach. What exactly that means, I am not sure. But perhaps someone out there who is good at nuance will read it and let me know what they think.

Why does anyone need a teaching portfolio?

Peter Seldin, the portfolio king said:

Teaching in colleges is marked by historic paradox: though institutions constantly talk up its importance, they evaluate faculty primarily on the basis of scholarly achievements outside the classroom. Teaching is what almost every professor does, but it seems to suffer from that very commonness.
….The interest in improved teaching has mushroomed rapidly in recent years, burrowing into all areas of the country and all types of institutions.

This is why teaching portfolios are important. They provide evidences of teaching excellence.

How to create a teaching portfolio

Brown University’s description of how to write a teaching portfolio. This site includes a list of personal materials, materials from colleagues, and student materials to collect for your portfolio. Examples of each are teaching goals for next five years, statements from colleagues who have observed your classes, and examples of graded student essays showing excellent, good, and poor work with instructor’s notes on the grading.

Washington University’s guide to Creating a Teaching Portfolio. This site includes a description of the major components and a discussion of how to make your portfolio more effective. Hints include formatting your portfolio for a particular audience and try to anticipate search committee questions. They also discuss having a master portfolio and which and how many student evaluations to include.

UTexas’ Preparing a Teaching Portfolio. It includes a discussion of what a portfolio is and a list of what things to include. It also discusses details from particular components of the portfolio. It includes a list of what things to look for when you are evaluating a colleague’s classroom (and thus what you hope they will look for when evaluating yours).

Ohio State’s Faculty and TA Development section on teaching portfolios. Excellent stuff. I thought their Rationale for Course Materials was excellent. They also supply different sample philosophy of teaching statements. They also suggest Mid-term feedback and offer ways to do this that will not require an entire period, but only five minutes.

Teach Portfolio and Presentation Series. This is an excellent guide. It includes a lot of links for continued reading. It also includes a long list of sample education philosophies that are on the net.

Less useful sites, but had a good hint or two.

Center for Instructional Development and Research. The most useful part of this was “Examples of efforts to Improve Teaching: observations, critiques, workshops, experiments in pedagogy and methodology.”

Peter Seldin’s site. He’s the portfolio guru. There is not a lot that I hadn’t already seen, but this: “Rather than offer a separate, isolated commentary for each appendix item, many professors weave references to appendices within unified essays. Why? Because this approach strengthens coherence.” seemed like good advice.

Article on Uses and Abuses of Teaching Portfolios. It is an introduction, but has some language that is useful, including summative and formative evaluation.

A portfolio can be used for summative evaluation (to evaluate teaching performance and provide a rational basis for promotion and tenure decisions and teaching award selections) or formative evaluation (to help identify and correct teaching problems). What goes in the portfolio depends on which function is intended. For summative evaluation, the portfolio should include some mandated items like a teaching philosophy and a summary of student ratings and some optional items that reflect on teaching performance and educational scholarship (e.g., student products, descriptions of teaching innovations, and reference letters from alumni or colleagues). For formative evaluation, the choice of content is entirely up to the professor and the focus should be on problem areas. The same portfolio should not be used for both functions.

Samples
UNC computer prof’s teaching portfolio. His is about four or five pages long and has works cited.

UGeorgia prof in journalism and mass communication. Hers is about twenty pages and includes some good thoughts, including bolding of key words in the essays.

They called fifteen or so minutes late, not on the phone I asked them to use.

They were polite. I wasn’t expecting the questions. I think I did fairly well.

Questions:
What do you think is the work load of a cc teacher?
What is the most fun thing for you about teaching writing?
What would be the most important thing in a paper? (I said fluency. But I’d never thought about the single most important thing because I think you have to have more.)
How do you feel about developmental studies?
Discuss a writing prompt you use and tell why you think it is effective. (I discussed the def/ill paper. That has become my favorite.)
What uniqueness can you bring to the college? (I told them my enjoyment of different things and my ability to find a way to implement something that was wanted/required and figure out a way to do it well.)

They told me that they ask several people to come to campus for an interview. When you are invited, you are expected to teach a class. The staff person would be getting in touch with me about that. Did I have any questions about the upcoming interview?

I did. I asked if I would be actually teaching a class (what SLAC does) or if I were going to instruct the teachers. I’m instructing the teachers.

Since I’ve already discussed the def/illus, I think I should probably pick a different paper to introduce. But I am not sure which one. I am leaning towards classification right now. But I know I don’t teach that as well as I should. Maybe I should ask NS or DW whether I should go ahead and do the def/ill. Other option would be the process paper. I have some good stories about that.

There is the implication in their question that I would be invited to campus. That would be nice. I am actually kind of psyched about this job now, but I am not sure why.