More Than a Feeling...

Okay. I really am sorry for the cheap song reference by way of mentioning that I'm in Boston. Sometimes you have to go the easy route, even when it makes you and everyone cringe. I thought about other titles - "Backwards into Boston" for the ride on the train in from my first stop, but this seemed best. Nothing else seemed to work, though. And worrying about the title seems silly anyway, since it misses the most important part. I'm in Boston.

I'm here, largely on vacation, though I've spent the morning lounging on a friend's couch writing "rewrite and resubmit" on student papers. Thankfully, I've managed out of the ten graded so far this morning to find three that I'm not going to have send back. Strangely, I never get this much work done first thing in the morning at my own place. It's like the academic equivalent of a Sanka commercial.

What's great about this trip though is that I get to see a lot of friends from grad school while I'm here. I was pretty lucky in my grad school experience. Grad students weren't forced to compete with each other for the tender mercies of the faculty, for one thing. But more importantly, our program drew great and interesting people as grad students. Academically, here was a willingness to share our work with each other and to help each other with it. Really, though, they were generous in spirit. Last night, as I was sitting on the same couch, drinking my beer and reminiscing, I was thinking about all those nights at the bar and out to dinner there was never a time when I couldn't recall there being way too much money to cover the check. Or how when someone was a little behind, there was always someone who noticed and helped without being asked and without asking anything. Of course there was the talk about big ideas. That's the obvious bit. But the completeness of it matters more, and that, as much as anything, is what I think about when I look back.

I was thinking this morning how I want to try and bring that sort of feeling back into my life. One of the tragedies of a great grad school experience - and I'll be honest, I look at grad school with the same fervor small town quarterbacks look at their senior year of high school - is that it ends with everyone fanning out to various parts of the country. So there's a lot that I miss, and it wouldn't seem like it should be difficult to find again, considering I (at least for the moment) work with people who are largely cut from the same cloth. Most days, that feels more daunting than it does today.

Maybe it is the sunshine. Or maybe it is Boston. Probably it's being close to good friends again, for however brief a time. Regardless, I'll take it.

More Views From This Side of the Table

So one of the secret joys of job searches is that you get to eat out lots, often at places you like. I expect, out of this influx of candidates, to get at least one good steak dinner on the University's dime. That probably means if you're hungry, reading this post isn't going to help. But really, it isn't intended just to be about food.

Beyond my own selfish (and gluttonous) motives, one of the things I'm liking in our candidates is that they're staking a claim on some things and making me do it, too. I'm in a program that's got a firmly stated mission - it's one of the attractive things that I think it well and truly attractive about our program - so sooner or later, anyone who wants to work here has to address it. Some candidates tiptoe around it, some try to ignore it , some pay lip service to it.

As a bit of clarification, I don't mean a mission statement in that resume/business school/corporate manner. Ours has a pretty direct view of what our program and field of endeavor is lacking and asks that we - and our students - bring their A games to change it. But for me, what I'm seeing this go-round is truly impressive.

As you may have guessed, yours truly likes a debate. Too much probably. So when a candidate sets down their fork, ignores their Pad Thai, looks me in the eye and says, "Now you know what I think. What do you think your mission means?", things are off to a good start. I look for that ability to engage - and to question - from a colleague. I didn't come from one of those particularly combative graduate programs, but we did have great discussions on things, and more than a few people there changed how I think about things. So maybe that's part of why I think it's important that I get a sense from candidates about how they'd read the mission of our department and where they'd take it.

And if their argument is good enough to make me ignore my Spring roll and Masuman curry, well, then we've got a winner, don't we?

My Album Cover

As much as I talk about music here, this seemed a natural sort of meme to play with. Plus it is Sunday, and we're in the midst of a remodel here at The Doctor Isn't, so why not a laid back sort of post.

Make Your Own Album Cover
1. Click on this link. The title of the page is the name of your band.
2. Click on this link. The last four words of the final quotation on the page are the title of your album.
3. Click on this link. The third picture is your album cover.
4. Add your band name and title to the picture.

Enjoy!

I'm personally fond of this as a game anyway - either taking random quotes out of things friends are saying or from things we're reading - to make either the title of their autobiography or the name of their band.

My favorite band name so far came from a class a few years back: The No Nothing F-Bombs.

Thoughts from the Other Side of the Table on Job Interviews

We're in the midst of a candidate search, which is my first time having any real say in the process from this end. I served on committees as a grad representative and helped in the hiring for a couple of visiting positions, but this feels markedly different. Sitting here in the midst of it, I'm realizing there are a few things that I look for in the job search and some things I'm looking for in candidates.

On the job search side, the big thing I'm realizing is that I want what I perceive to be fairness to candidates. I want them to go through roughly the same experiences in roughly the same order. For example. I mentioned in a previous post that I had some problems with the search committee's view of a teaching demonstration (which, by implication, means I also had some problems with the teaching demonstration). And to their credit, the candidate did exactly what I'd wanted - in the interview, which came after the teaching demonstration, the first thing they mentioned was the lecture and what their intention was. They also copped to what got away from them, and how they'd change things. It didn't completely dispel my doubts, but it certainly lessened them (and I realize some people think this is probably a no-no, but I, at least, would like to see it). But at least one of our later candidates won't get that chance as the teaching demonstration is the last thing they're doing.

With teaching schedules being what they are, and the strange nature of arranging candidate visits being what they are, getting that level of order can be a problem. But I would prefer it because I'll admit that I've got a series of questions that I want answered from every candidate. Obviously, I want to know how they're going to address some things that I know matter to me, but it is also because I want as much of a chance to see how they compare to each other.

I'd also like to see a bit more formality on the side of the interviewer. I'm realizing how little I recall about my own interview here as we go through this process. But I'm finding myself frustrated with the department as there is a hesitancy about planning little details. For example, there seems to be a steadfast refusal to reserve a room for the candidate interviews, which leaves us wandering, looking for an available room (and often that room winds up being a disheveled class room). I've mentioned to the search chair that I think leaving this to chance makes us look disorganized (which, evidently, we are). I've done job interviews before where the committee didn't even get me an itinerary until I was checking into a hotel, and that level of disorganization (and I'll also say lack of consideration) made me immediately lose a lot of interest in the position.

One other way this has expressed itself in our search is where the candidates are doing their presentations. Now it seems to me that we've written a very well-defined job description, and so we'd not only want to see a teaching demonstration that addresses those things, but that we'd make sure that such a lecture was being put into classes where they'd make the most sense. Instead, we've got candidates teaching to a wide variety of classes that may or may not relate to the area for this hire at all. Again I tried to express this to the search chair - and in this case, I was met with some interesting considerations that (while I don't agree with) I can at least see the point of. But I do wonder how it is being perceived by the job candidates.

Where I'm surprised though is in the margins of what I'm looking for in a candidate. Part of what I try to do with questioning candidates is to see how much of themselves they let come out. I don't trust perfect fits to everything, so anytime I see someone who loves everything we're doing, who'd suggest nothing different, who finds the university perfect, loves the area, wants the courses, etc. I'm immediately suspicious. I want a colleague who will push me (and some of those other things) a bit.

All the usual things apply, in addition. I want a candidate with ideas, who can convey them to a variety of people, and who relates well with us. Too much reserve on the part of a candidate seems dangerous to me because I, like probably every person out there, thinks I'm easy to get along with. And as a department goes, I can guarantee we're laid back. That part probably isn't surprising. But I'm also realizing that I'm looking for youth with this position, which I hadn't recognized previously.

Maybe that isn't so surprising either, but I think the reasons are worth noting. I'm currently the youngest person (by quite a margin) in the department. I'm also the newest hire. One of the things I've noticed - subtly and unintentionally - with my colleagues so far in this process is that when the candidate is their age, I'm still the kid of the department even though I advise more students, teach a wider range of classes, etc. than the rest. Even the potential hire gets into the act. I don't mean to imply that I want someone to have to pay their dues and do lots of work and toady to me. I just mean that I don't intend to pay extra dues. There is, to me at least, a palpable sense of a not-quite-Old Boys network here, and I don't feel any need to add to that with our hire. Nor do I want one more "elder to respect" in this process.

Signs my blog has been successful...

Rather than start today focusing on more serious things, today deserves a little humor. So I present some of the most recent search terms that have brought me readers:

• "atomic stomp"
• "cruisin in my six four"
• "charity prom dress drives"
• "conclusion for country music"

Obviously, this pleases me as it is exactly the high-brow demographic I'm looking for coupled with the focus and clarity that you've come to expect from all things Curmudgeon.

Scabs

No, this isn't a post about the John Stewart/Steven Colbert/Jay Leno Working While There's a Writer's Strike kind, but the sort you find yourself picking at.

I was wondering, earlier today, about whether there was a cyclical nature to the blogging world: the circle of blogging complaint, if you will. Or maybe some sort of bizarre social convention I don't get, like not wearing white after Labor Day, that tells us secretly not to complain about job-market stuff during certain times of the year. Shouldn't there be an academic version of a groundhog, after all, that tells us it's six more months of the winter of our discontent? I'm temporarily passing on the joke about it being a grad student seeing their advisor's shadow, but it's only because I don't want any grad students reading this to feel compared to a rodent.

I just recently received the rejection letter from the job I knew (but didn't KNOW) I'd been rejected for. It arrived months after I'd been told I'd hear, and I'm sitting here tonight reading it over and over again while looking outside at the icy streets outside. And I'm attaching the phrase "long distance" to all sorts of atypical things to see if the taste of it ruins: "long distance Christmas," "long distance great uncle," "long distance debt consolidation." So far, I haven't found a phrase that is made truly better by its addition.

We're in the beginning stages of our candidate searches here, and after having only read some letters and seen a teaching demonstration, I think I may be at odds with my department. Maybe it's because I hate the touchy-feely (and have ever since 9th grade when my English teacher thought making us sit on the floor Indian-style would make us more responsive to each other's writing (it didn't - 9th grade poetry is bad no matter where you sit). And I hate teaching by buzz-word as much as I hated making policy by buzz-word in the corporate world. So a teaching demonstration where I'm fairly certain I didn't see the person teaching actually do anything but put the students into groups and let them argue over whose clumsy use of a concept was the least offensive leaves me a little cold. Yes, yes, "active integrative" blah blah.

I'd be completely growly but "Sad Professor" by R.E.M. just came on the MP3 player, and you can only laugh at that kind of musical irony.

Not drowning, just waving...

It seems I may have fallen off the face of the Earth. This morning someone contacted me, saying "Jim and I were talking about you, and we'd decided you might have died. Hope you're still among the living." It was only one of several messages in the last four or five days that indicated, in varying degrees, that I might be in one of those "Quiet. TOO quiet." moments.

So for anyone who was wondering, no, I'm not gone, dead, or disinterested. I am, however, quite possibly the most boring person around these days, with so little to report that I should probably be depressed about it. As blogging goes, I've got so little inspiration that I could be in a Milli-Vanilli cover band. I'm embarrassed to admit that even as I write this, I'm half-tempted to just post song lyrics. But I'm not in sixth grade, and I think it'd just seem like some sort of depression to the untrained eye. And I can't have that as I've been enjoying myself in very quiet ways, having spent lots of time on the phone recently talking about nothing in particular which is a subject at which I seem to excel. And I'm slowly pushing into the book writing, even as the rest of my month threatens to evaporate with a slew of campus interviews for the position we're hiring for (as opposed to the sorts of campus interviews I'd want, where I'm being courted).

I did manage to finesse the schedules a bit for most of the visits so that I can make my appearances and then return to the book, so thanks to everyone who offered advice on that a few posts back. And I am excited to have scammed a trip to Boston next week to visit a few friends. And I submitted an article to a journal (this feels huge as the one question people asked at both of my interviews this year was why I've so many non-journal publications).

So, dear readers, apologies for the absence (and the fact that it'll likely continue for a bit.