Career & Personal Choices Flashcards
(12 cards)
*Tell us about your plans for the next five years.
Graceland: private, 4-year, liberal arts university
You’ll need to explain how, leaving on XX date, on XX road, you’ll make it to XX city by sundown. Then starting the next day, you’ll reach XX by sundown. You will give the step-by-step route complete with mileage goals and destinations along the way. They don’t need to know your feelings about the scenery.
Same for tenure. Tenure is a destination that must be reached in careful and well-planned stages. The search committee needs to know 1) that you get what tenure at their institution means and 2) that you have plan complete with dates and locations to get there. All framed within THEIR concerns. R1 = RESEARCH goals, along with teaching and a tiny bit of service; SLAC = TEACHING goals, always informed by research and more service.
In five years, I want to be on-track toward tenure at Graceland through teaching, service, and publication. If given this position, I will begin my tenure file to create a timeline
TEACHING SERVICE faculty committee larger community student advising
*Tell us why you want to work here.
Graceland: private, 4-year, liberal arts university
They want to know that you understand the university, the department, the faculty. That you have thought it through and see where you can connect, build, and engage, giving specific examples and ideas.
university: smaller classes, tight-knit community, develop better relationships with students
department: course offerings, interdisciplinary
faculty: inspired by work you do in the community
connect: develop my interdisciplinary practice, connect with other departments
build: work with students services on recruitment and retention of students from underserved communities
engage: with the outside community
Do you have any questions for us?
These questions are more ways they elicit information about you. They want to know what you are prioritizing in your academic life. Your questions always reveal your values, and you must manage them for what they disclose. They are often where your deepest priorities and anxieties come out into the light. If all your questions are about teaching, and it’s an R1, you look like you don’t belong. You must show them that you are thinking about what they think you should be thinking about. Always with an eye to your tenure case.
Craft questions that have a dual purpose: gathering information while demonstrating something important about who you are as a candidate.
Prepare at least five to six questions and plan to ask three or four of them – some of what you plan to ask is likely to be addressed in the interview. In deciding which question to ask first, consider which one best demonstrates what you value.
QUESTION 1: diversity
What specific committees or programs I can work with on diversity, inclusion, retention?
QUESTION 2: department
Are there opportunities for collaborative work within the department, either in terms of teaching or research?
QUESTION 3: university
initiative related to my interest/research
QUESTION 4: teaching
about the courses
QUESTION 5: tenure
a) how is teaching evaluated by the department and university?
b) What does the tenure process look like?
QUESTION 6
TEACHING:
students complete 1 essential education curriculum
English works with 2 (social justice, sustainability)
DEPARTMENT:
Brian White: experiential education, Partners in the Parks
Catherine Clifford: Summer Shakespeare at Graceland
Karen Gergely
Leslie Robinson
*Describe your goals and plans for professional development as a University / College instructor?
What are some of the specific things you would like to address/learn in your own professional development? How is this connected to your work as an academic?
improve teaching practices
technological skills
different forms of blended learning/teaching
*What about our position is particularly attractive to you?
COURSES
progressive course offerings
essential education curriculum
interdisciplinary
COMMUNITY
*What do you do when you are not working? (Modern equivalent of “what are your hobbies?”)
Netflix
online talks & conferences: Jodi Byrd, Tiffany King
hang out at the lakes
*What is the last book that you read for fun?
Jesmyn Ward: Sing, Unburied, Sing
*How do you feel about living in a rural place?
it will be a welcome change
*What kind of salary are you looking for?
open
*If you get more than one job offer how will you decide between them?
fit with colleagues and department, students, university
*Who else is interviewing you?
Lindsey Wilson
*How did you go about researching / preparing for the interview for this position?
RESEARCH
website, English program page, FB, IG, list of courses, Lamoni community
PREPARE
designed a course to fit the listings: tweaked the ones I have already taught, created new ones for the ones I haven’t
