Interview Season

My department is in the late stage of a faculty search. Late stage? But it’s only early November! Unlike most other areas where there might be a turnaround of several months from start to finish, academic searches can take a long time. My work started over a year ago. At this point last year, I had completed the paperwork requesting a new tenure line along with plenty of supporting data to convince the administration why it was a crucial need. (Our classes and number of majors are bursting at the seams!) In the late spring and early summer we had job advertisements posted with a deadline early in the Fall semester. A subcommittee “triages” through the many, many applications and narrows the pool down to the top 5-10%. Then all of us read the full applications and winnow down the candidates to those we would like to phone-interview. This is further reduced to a very small number of candidates invited for on-campus interviews. That’s where we are right now, and we plan to have an offer out by mid-November for a position starting next August.

The schedule used to be much later. When I was on the job market, many of the interviews were in January, although I did have a few in the late Fall. But over the years, there has been an “arms race” to secure the strongest candidates quickly thereby resulting in deadlines being pushed ever earlier. This strategy has worked well for us – we’ve had the strongest pool I’ve seen in many years. It gets increasingly difficult to winnow down the list with so many highly qualified and capable candidates. Those that make it to the on-campus interview have a busy two full days, as do the rest of us. I enjoy learning new cutting-edge science even if not in my subfield. I’m reminded that I could still be doing a better job teaching while observing a candidate doing a stellar job explaining complex science to undergraduates. There is also wining and dining involved, a very useful setting that allows the candidates to see the strong camaraderie in my department when we’re out on a social event together. But to prevent myself from getting fat with all those dinners out, I have been opting for fish entrees with an extra side of vegetables. I do have trouble resisting dessert though! (I've opted to post a picture of my broccolini instead of my dessert.)

While the process is slow and goes through many stages, I am happy that faculty hiring is primarily in the hands of faculty. This was not the case in the early stages of presently “premier” institutions in the U.S., and it is still not the case in many other countries. I’ve been learning more about the history of faculty involvement in hiring their own through reading Larry Gerber’s The Rise and Decline of Faculty Governance. Gerber’s slant is more of an observer reporting on facts and trends, in contrast to Benjamin Ginsberg’s The Fall of the Faculty, a scathing view (with many personal anecdotes) that I’ve written about in an earlier post. Gerber divides his analysis into eras starting with the antebellum period (a new word I had to look up), 1870-1920 (the beginning of many august institutions), 1920-1940, 1940-1970 (where the largest gains in faculty governance have taken place), and the post-1970 era with the erosion of faculty governance. The AAUP features strongly in the narrative.

Back in the day, the university president and/or the governing board would hire and fire faculty without involving their peers. As the percentage of adjunct faculty (who often have little or no voice in the university governance process) increases in the present era, along with financial belt-tightening, the balance of power is now squarely back in the hands of university administrations.

This made me think about the Hogwarts model of hiring professors. We don’t have many examples of how the process works although it seems that the Headmaster (Dumbledore in most cases) interviews candidates and determines whether or not they will join the staff. No mention is made of whether he consults the rest of his staff. Clearly he is the wisest and cleverest of the group, as portrayed in the books – but he also admits that this can result in errors with more serious consequences. Trelawney applies for the Divination post, and Dumbledore interviews her at an inn (The Hog’s Head!) and doesn’t think she has the chops until she makes a “genuine” prophecy that she herself does not recall. In a sense she is not like the fabled Cassandra of Greek mythology who is fated to know that her prophecies will not sway her listeners. Trelawney is hired mainly for her own protection to which she is oblivious.

The largest turnover is in the Defense Against the Dark Arts position. It’s unclear exactly why Quirrell or Lockhart were hired. Clearly Dumbledore knows that neither of them were particularly qualified. Remus Lupin, on the other hand, is qualified and seems to do a fine job teaching the students through active learning and not just through theoretical concepts – the method of choice employed by Dolores Umbridge. In this case, Dumbledore doesn’t hire her but rather the Ministry (is this the “administration?”) puts her in Hogwarts to “keep an eye on things” and gives her extra administrative powers. Alastor Moody is hired because Dumbledore is “reading the signs” of Voldemort’s return to power, although the one doing the teaching at Hogwarts is a very capable imposter.

Besides Trelawney’s interview, Voldemort also asks Dumbledore for a teaching position in an interview of sorts. Dumbledore wisely does not hire him. The most extensive interview that we read about is in Book 6 when Dumbledore seeks to persuade Slughorn out of retirement. Harry is employed as bait to get Slughorn to agree. In all of these cases, it seems that a conversation takes place between Dumbledore and the potential hiree, and that’s it! This in fact looks like what happens when as department chair I’ve hire adjunct faculty. There is an open position; I have a stack of CVs that I have prioritized; I e-mail potential candidates in order of priority and have a phone conversation sometimes followed-up with an on-campus visit (we’re lucky to have a good local pool to draw from). Then I either hire the candidate or move on to the next person. In fact I was hired in exactly the same way as an adjunct faculty member. In my case this was a little over two months before the beginning of the semester. Slughorn and Moody were hired barely weeks before the new term started.

Why do we hire so differently for these different types of positions? If faculty governance is so important, why do we only take the long-layered route when hiring on the tenure line? To some extent, we’re pragmatic and have limited time – and therefore the hiring of adjunct faculty has been delegated to the chair at least in my department. I'd like to think it's because I can be trusted to do this well. (I do consult with my colleagues in the appropriate subfield.) The job scope of the adjunct faculty member is also much more limited, and we’re hiring for a very specific skill set. A tenure track position on the other hand often hinges on potential – what the candidate could become, rather than what he or she is right now. I suppose that’s true of hiring any new teacher who has little experience. You have to start somewhere. (Here's an earlier post on teacher hiring and training.) And I’m thankful to those who gave me my early opportunities, or trusted me with their children (I started off as a tutor). Did Dumbledore see potential in Quirrell or Lockhart? Perhaps potential to change and grow in maturity? I don’t know. As a teacher, it’s important to remind myself to see the potential of my students to grow as life-long learners even if some of them seem like Quirrell and Lockhart from my limited perspective.