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Post by One more question on Jan 16, 2014 16:38:06 GMT -5
NewMexicaner,
For this position applicants are asked to submit a 5-10 teaching portfolio including sample syllabi, teaching evaluations, and sample assignments. How are we supposed submit multiple sample syllabi or even one along with the other materials in 10 pages? I think good syllabi can easily be 5, 7, 10, or more pages. Please help... Thanks!
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Post by NewMexicaner on Jan 16, 2014 17:28:30 GMT -5
NewMexicaner, For this position applicants are asked to submit a 5-10 teaching portfolio including sample syllabi, teaching evaluations, and sample assignments. How are we supposed submit multiple sample syllabi or even one along with the other materials in 10 pages? I think good syllabi can easily be 5, 7, 10, or more pages. Please help... Thanks! Edit. Seriously, longwindedness is best for doctoral students, tenure candidates assembling their dossiers and anonymous faculty members answering job questions on discussion boards. Edit ruthlessly down to whatever you consider the important stuff. Show the search committee exactly what you want them to see. This might be the applicant's best chance to control the process. Its understood by most, if not everyone on the search committee that your syllabi and example assignments are edited versions. Include summaries of evaluations rather than reams of data. Include links to online versions of complete syllabi or assignments if you want to offer extra details. The last search I served on was considered "small" and "manageable" because it included only 80 or so applications. That, for this position, would mean 800 pages of reading on top of CV's, cover letters and recommendations. I am not looking for sympathy as reading applications was my job and I took it knowingly and seriously. Nobody failed to get read and examined, but the applicants who got to the points they wanted to highlight faster and more efficiently stood out as well as undergrads who take the time to craft appropriate theme statements in their essays. Burying in bullshit rarely pays off in the long term in this particular case. Unfortunately, this also means that the applicant is being asked to craft something specific for this job application at an early stage in the process. Its akin to requesting letters of recommendation from the entire pool of applicants rather than just those judged to make the long-short list. Applicants are forced to make a real investment in a job search with a fairly low rate of return. I am not sure how to redress this very real disparity. I do know that convincing yourself that you can break the published page limit because your work is so good it will wow the search committee is a very bad idea. The majority of applicants will studiously keep to instructions and you will stick out in an unflattering way. Such applications will, at best earn the label of "unable to follow instructions" or "likely a longwinded speaker" and, at worst, be left unread after 10 pages by particularly crabby committee members. |
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Post by NewMexicaner on Jan 16, 2014 17:40:40 GMT -5
I'm also curious as to whether the "letter of interest" should include a substantial discussion of one's research agenda, since the application does not ask for a research statement. You have clearly determined the unwritten instructions. Although a short research statement is also fairly common within the CV itself. I suspect there is something to further consider based on your specific conception of "substantial". A three or four page cover letter is pushing things in my opinion. Yet describing not just your research, but how it your research agenda could actually function in this particular environment seems a good idea. Even better, for a job such as this that values teaching, would be a clear statement of how research and teaching could be linked to better both. Perhaps someone else could chime in here with advice. |
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Post by still searching on Jan 16, 2014 18:55:38 GMT -5
NewMexicaner, I just wanted to say thanks for all the information and advice. This sounds like a fantastic opportunity. I'll be throwing my hat in the ring!
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Post by NewMexicaner on Jan 16, 2014 19:13:16 GMT -5
NewMexicaner, I just wanted to say thanks for all the information and advice. This sounds like a fantastic opportunity. I'll be throwing my hat in the ring! You're welcome. I didn't mean to monopolize the thread and get too far into general advice versus questions about this specific job. But this is something of a self-serving exercise on my part. The number of search committees I have served on in the last dozen years is approaching the double digits and there will no doubt be more in the future. Neither the process nor the results were always what was hoped for. I firmly believe that anything that makes the process clearer will make that portion of my job easier. |
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Post by NewMexicaner on Jan 17, 2014 19:20:27 GMT -5
I'll check back here a couple time in the next week or so if anyone else has questions.
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Post by one question on Jan 22, 2014 17:11:36 GMT -5
Thanks for all the helpful advice--this has been really useful. Wish more job searches were this explicit. One little question: who is chairing the committee? I'd like my letter to properly address her/him. Thanks!
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Post by NewMexicaner on Jan 22, 2014 17:55:49 GMT -5
Thanks for all the helpful advice--this has been really useful. Wish more job searches were this explicit. One little question: who is chairing the committee? I'd like my letter to properly address her/him. Thanks! Your guide to the main players who might be in contact with applicants: Dr. Troy Lovata is the Search Committee Chair and main point of contact, Dr. Ursula Shepherd is the Associate Dean who oversees the daily workings of the Honors College, Sophia Alvarez is senior staff member in the College (letters of recommendation are sent to her) and Dr. Kate Krause is the Dean of the College. |
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Post by Fount on Jan 24, 2014 11:24:06 GMT -5
Much thanks to the fount of wisdom emanating from New Mexico. Your helpfulness is incredibly appreciated!
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Post by Askin on Feb 21, 2014 10:12:44 GMT -5
If you're still around NewMexicaner, what is the timeline for this search? Have you started contacting candidates?
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Post by Hmm on Feb 21, 2014 19:52:28 GMT -5
What happened to the person you hired 2 years ago?
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Post by 2years on Feb 21, 2014 20:47:38 GMT -5
What happened to the person you hired 2 years ago? No info on that, but I was someone they interviewed two years ago. While I was there, I realized they had a huge pool of adjuncts and VAPs. The director told me they wished they could hire them full-time, and sure enough, they hired one of them. I was irritated that they asked me for a lot of materials, including an elaborate presentation that included video. I know that VAPs are never guaranteed to get the TT position, but when there's a whole bunch of them, I think the odds are good that one of them will. Seems like it didn't work out, though. |
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Post by knowledgeable on Feb 21, 2014 21:04:33 GMT -5
What happened to the person you hired 2 years ago? No info on that, but I was someone they interviewed two years ago. While I was there, I realized they had a huge pool of adjuncts and VAPs. The director told me they wished they could hire them full-time, and sure enough, they hired one of them. I was irritated that they asked me for a lot of materials, including an elaborate presentation that included video. I know that VAPs are never guaranteed to get the TT position, but when there's a whole bunch of them, I think the odds are good that one of them will. Seems like it didn't work out, though. I'm not the one from NM who posted here before, but I'm connected to the last hire. You're not totally correct. The hire 2 years ago was genuinely competitive and the choice to hire from part time to tenure track was actually rare for this place. The last hire was kind of oddly situated with a full time job at a local research lab and teaching part time for peanuts because she didn't want to lose academic connections. The previous hire was a publishing and grant machine with something like a dozen articles and two R1 NIH grants as PI in two years. She was more or less poached away by the med school at this university. Brought in by them w/ tenure and nearly twice the salary. Sorry to hear that you were irritated. The hire from two years ago commented to me that the place was "thorough" in judging teaching. |
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Post by NewMexicaner on Feb 21, 2014 23:35:40 GMT -5
If you're still around NewMexicaner, what is the timeline for this search? Have you started contacting candidates? The "for best consideration date" was exactly a week ago. The denizens of this discussion board are clearly an anxious lot. Nonetheless, things are apparently moving along at a very steady clip and some contact should be made soon. As for the discussion about the previous hiring for this position, I am not here to gossip. It is true enough that this is a replacement hire for a faculty member who has taken a tenured position in the UNM Medical School. That is of course not the whole story good nor bad. But any candidate should be aware that the Honors College has gone through some significant changes over the last two years as it has become an independent, degree granting college rather than a quasi-dependent program, including: a new Associate Dean (what was formerly titled Director of the Program), a new Dean (a position that was unfilled at the time of last hire), a new Provost (one reason that Dean's position is now filled), a new President (though New Mexico has the rather unfortunate, but not necessarily uncommon, history of having five different Presidents in fifteen years) and increasing enrollment matched by four tenure track faculty hired in three new lines last year. None of those things are any secret as any applicant who visited the college's webpage or contacted the college directly has no doubt found apparent. |
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Post by Lol on Feb 22, 2014 10:25:45 GMT -5
Let's give new mexicaner a rest and thank him/her for answering our questions. Very gracious.
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