Notes from both sides of the market, part 7: standing out for teaching jobs

In my fifth post in this series, I wrote about how to stand out as a researcher in a crowded field of applicants. Generally speaking, when it comes to research jobs and elite liberal-arts colleges, we all know what this involves: coming from a top-ranked program and publishing in top-ranked journals. However, as I explained, my experience on both sides of the market is that originality can matter too. Because a lot of candidates may work on slight variations of the same "hot topic", working on something totally different can potentially set a particular candidate apart from the field.

One thing we have not explored, however--either in this series or in our earlier Job-Market Boot Camp--is specifically how to stand out as a candidate for jobs at teaching schools (i.e. non-elite liberal arts colleges, community colleges, etc.). My own admittedly anecdotal experience is that many candidates--and unfortunately, the graduate programs, advisors, and placement officers that prepare candidates for the job-market--appear to be fairly unaware of just how different teaching institutions are than research institutions. This is not a put-down, and indeed, in some ways it is probably unavoidable. For better or worse, the faculty who work at PhD granting graduate programs have likely spent their entire careers in research-focused institutions. Given their experience, how could they be well aware of what life and institutional priorities are like at teaching institutions? For my part, it took several years of actually working at such an institution to learn these things!

Consequently, I thought it might be helpful to outline some of the things that I think--as someone who has worked at a teaching institution for a number of years now--may serve to set job-candidates apart when applying for jobs at institutions like mine. Please bear in mind that these are only my own impressions. As someone who has only worked at one teaching institution (but who also knows people well who work at others!), my impressions should be taken with a grain of salt. Not all teaching institutions may be similar--and for that reason I would like to invite readers who work at such institutions to share their impressions in the comments section as well. With these caveats in mind, here goes!

Here, I think, are a few ways to stand out as a candidate for jobs at teaching institutions:

Teaching philosophy: My experience working at a teaching-focused institution is that these institutions can have a very strong culture that cares a great deal about teaching. It can therefore be very helpful to show in your teaching statement that you have thought a great deal about teaching, and have a sophisticated teaching philosophy--not just one that "shows you care" about students, but one that clearly and concretely tells the committee exactly what you do as a teacher, both inside and outside of the classroom, as well as why you do it. As I explained once before, many teaching statements don't do that--instead "waxing philosophical", at a very general level, how the candidates cares about students, is "passionate" about teaching, and so on. The more precise your statement is--demonstrating precisely how your teaching philosophy inspires specific pedagogical practices--the more likely you are to stand out.

Teaching innovation: Some people who work at teaching institutions are "old-school" teachers who stand in front of a class and just talk/engage in Socratic dialogue. You can get a job at a teaching institution if you do this (though I suspect you must be truly exemplary at it). That being said, in my experience, the culture at teaching institutions--among faculty and administrators alike--nevertheless tends to favor innovation. Make no mistake about it: people at institutions want to hire excellent teachers--people who put a ton of work into their teaching, take risks, experiment in the classroom, etc. As I explained here, I worked very hard over a number of years to transition from a traditional "chalk and talk" pedagogy to a much more elaborate set of teaching practices. Although one's practices need not be anywhere as elaborate as mine to stand out for teaching jobs, I do think, once again, that the more original (though thoughtful and pedagogically justifiable) one's teaching strategies are, the more likely one is to stand out.

Teaching evaluations: We all know how problematic student-evaluations are. Alas, for all that, in prevailing conditions they still matter at teaching institutions. Here is one big reason I think they matter (and perhaps, legitimately so). As many recent cases amply illustrate, humanities departments (philosophy among them) are increasingly on the chopping block, being downsized or eliminated for "financial reasons." Teaching-centered institutions often do not have large endowments, but instead rely on student tuition to fund everyday operations and faculty salaries (and yes, administrators). Consequently, there may be very strong "butts in seats" incentives within departments and colleges--i.e. a focus on course enrollments and majors/minors. Because few students enroll in liberal arts colleges intending to be philosophy majors--indeed, philosophy majors are declining--it can be very important at teaching institutions to hire and retain faculty who are likely to draw majors and non-majors to the classroom. And, like it or not, that's where student perceptions matter.

Teaching breadth: Of all of the things I mention in this post, I think this one may be the "biggest deal." Philosophy departments are teaching institutions are often small, with too few full-time tenure-stream faculty and too many courses in need of teaching. Consequently, the broader your teaching experience--including experience teaching courses outside of your AOS, as well as online teaching--the more likely you are to stand out. If you want a job at a teaching institution, teach a wide variety of courses. Search committees may well reason as follows, "Candidate X is really good...but Candidate Y has experience teaching courses A, B, C, and D, and we really need someone to teach those courses!"

Service: This is, I think, one of the "unsung" areas that can set a candidate apart, but which few candidates appear to prioritize. Make no mistake about it: you won't get hired because you have ample administrative experience--but various forms of service (heading student clubs, doing departmental assessment, serving on a grad student committee) can set a good candidate apart from other similarly-good candidates. Departmental and university service, as many people noted here, is a much bigger deal at teaching institutions than many people realize. At many teaching institutions, you will have a lot of service obligations--serving on committees, on faculty senate, etc. Further, departments and administrators look very favorable (viz. tenure) on faculty who engage with students (viz. student clubs, etc.). Having a past record of service not only shows that you have the willingness, interest, and initiative to do these important things--but also, very importantly, that you can do all of these things while also succeeding as a researcher and teacher. I say this is important, because one thing that can (and does) happen from time to time is someone is hired who cannot keep up with all of their obligations (they either let their research slide, their teaching slide, or don't do enough service). Being able to show that you can balance good service with success in other areas is thus a very good--and fairly uncommon--thing to see in a candidate: something that can really make a candidate stand out from the field.

Past publishing success: As this Daily Nous thread indicates (and I will come back to it in a subsequent post), teaching-focused institutions can have very different research requirements for tenure. Some institutions require a number of publications in good peer-reviewed journals, whereas tenure at other institutions may be achieved with only one or two publications. In any case, research matters at teaching institutions--but not, in my experience, in the same way as at research institutions. While "elite" liberal arts institutions may expect publications in top-ranked journals, my experience on both sides of the market is that this is not at all true at many "non-elite" teaching institutions. As a job-candidate, I interviewed at many "non-elite" institutions, and very few (if any) of their faculty had publications in elite journals--and they often complimented my research output despite my not having any either. As I have noted before, I suspect this may be in part because publications in top-ranked journals may in some cases scare a search committee away from a candidate as a potential flight-risk. Whatever the case, my experience is that if you want to stand out as a researcher for teaching schools, three things are probably helpful: (1) a good previous publication record (roughly, the more publications the better), (2) indications of likely continued publishing success in more than one research program, and (3) an interesting and original research program that is likely to engage undergraduate students. By a "good" previous publication record, I mean several publications in legitimate (though not necessarily top-ranked) peer-review journals. This alone will not set you apart from the crowd, as you are likely competing against dozens or more other candidates with similar publication records. Thus, the more decent publications you have, the more competitive you may be.

Promise of continual publication: A good publication record (as opposed to no publications) is important for teaching jobs, as hiring committees want to know you will be publish enough to get tenure. However, to truly stand out, it's important not just to have a past record of publishing success. In my experience, one of the things hiring committees care most about is whether a hire is likely to get tenure. Hiring someone who does not get tenure is, in essence, a failed search--one that takes about six years to turn out to a failed search (if/when tenure is denied). It can thus be important to hiring committees to demonstrate that your research will have "legs", leading to publications beyond two or three papers emerging from your dissertation. Indeed, at some schools it is a tenure requirement to have at least one publication on research not from your dissertation. So, the more developed of a long-term (but realistic) research program you have, the more you are likely to stand out.

Accessibility of research: Finally, my sense is that "accessible" research programs--programs that students and the university community may have interest in and be able to understand--may fare better for teaching schools. Remember, teaching schools are not research schools. They are schools that, by and large, focus on students and the classroom. They also often prioritize community engagement. Accordingly, while more esoteric research programs may appeal to high-ranking research departments, my own sense is that they might be something of a hindrance when it comes to teaching jobs. But this is just a vague sense, and may be wrong.

Anyway, these are just some things that I think candidates can do to set themselves apart for teaching jobs. Once again, please take them with a grain of salt, as they are only my impressions -- but, for all that, I hope you find them helpful and would be very interested to hear what other faculty at teaching institutions think? (If I'm wrong about things, please do correct me - I'm always happy to learn and revise my thoughts!).

Comments

[Recent hire]

I was hired this year at a very tiny teaching school. I have no idea what made me past the first stage. But at the interview and campus visit, I had very similar experiences.

First of all, they did care a bit about my research, and were glad that I could explain it in terms they (even the non-philosophers) understood. I had the sense that not every candidate did that very well.

Second, of course they did care about teaching, but I didn't get the sense that the teaching portfolio was very important (at least, mine wasn't very impressive I think). They did comment when I was there on the good letters I got (which of course I don't know), including the teaching letter, so I guess that mattered. And they did comment *a lot* on my teaching demo when I was at the school. Apparently some candidates completely messed that up. (I think I have taught probably the average or perhaps a little more before my interview; explicitly thinking about some pedagogical approaches before the visit helped in the situation.)

They also had some pedagogical questions at the interviews, which I felt could have gone either way, so I just had to say what I really thought (e.g., what I thought about teaching mostly primary sources, etc.).

When I was on campus, I had a lot of interactions with students (meals together, etc.), and as it turned out, the students had a pretty serious say in the hiring (more, seemingly, than the grad students had in my grad school!). So just being generally personable with and interested in students helps; apparently some candidates just didn't know how to talk to them.

Overall, when I was on campus I felt their biggest worry was whether I would stay at the school. It will be a big change for me indeed, but I did really like the place and tried to signal that as often as I could. As I see, for such a small school the hiring process is a huge investment of resources.

[Amanda]

Thanks for the interesting perspective, recent hire. I think your account is a good example of why hiring might seem arbitrary: some schools are not specifically searching for someone with research or teaching excellence. They are searching for a pleasant and personable colleague, a COMPETENT teacher and researcher, and an individual who is unlikely to jump ship.

I am very close to some colleagues on hiring committees at "teaching" schools. They specifically were not looking for teaching excellence nor excellent student evaluations (and definitely not research excellence) but rather competence and idiosyncratic qualities that were a fit for the department. Now some teaching schools might really be looking for evidence of a super teacher, but many are not.

[Teaching School person]

Amanda,
I work at a "teaching school," a place where the principal part of our job is teaching. We have a 3-3 teaching load, with one course being large. We take teaching, evidence of teaching, and a commitment to teaching very seriously. We cannot afford to hire someone who is an okay teacher, because we do not hire often, and our colleagues are expected to teach, and to teach well. In other departments on campus people have lost their bid for tenure because they are ineffective teachers. We also value scholarship in our department but we can only ask for so much. Our scholarship requirements are quite low. Indeed, we hire people who have already published as much (though they must continue to do so during the march for tenure). We are a state college, and we still have many first generation college attendees.

[Marcus Arvan]

Amanda: That's fair I suppose. While I don't know what other institutions are like, I know that my institution does not look to just hire competent people. We want to hire *excellent* people who otherwise are a good fit.

Anyway, I'm going to talk about "fit" in a subsequent post. I think it often does play a very large role, particularly late in the hiring process (viz. interviews, on-campus visits). When it comes those things--personality, how you come off, whether you look like a flight-risk--I think there are some things you can do. And that'll be the topic of my next post.

That being said, I still think that *standing out* is vital early in the process (at the dossier review stage), and that the advice I offer in this post can improve one's chances there. Indeed, one important matter of "fit" is breadth of teaching experience. Smaller departments often have courses they need taught--and you never know what that course might be for a given department: it could be philosophy of religion, it could be early modern, it could be business ethics, logic, etc. Consequently, the more courses you have experience teaching, the more likely you may be to perk search committee members interests (viz. "Wow, we really need someone to teach X, and this is one of the only candidates who can!"). Similarly, even if not all schools are looking for excellence, it is still surely better, all things being equal, to stand out from other applicants with unique teaching practices, etc.

Trust me, when you're reviewing hundreds of applications, what you are looking for are candidates who stand out--and, in my experience, the things I mention in the post are some ways to do that.

[Recent hire]

Marcus, I think you're basically right, but the question is *how* precisely people can stand out in the ways you mentioned, especially people just finishing grad school.

At least among my friends on the market this year, *everyone* had excellent teaching statements, excellent student evals (at least since it's mostly up to you how you present it), and excellent letters.
*Everyone* has had at least some publications, and mostly everyone had been on some committee / done some service at the department.
Since at least in my grad school we weren't given the option to teach whatever we wanted, we had very similar teaching experiences, over which we had little control. (Yes, you could maybe adjunct in the summer -- I couldn't, because of visa status...)

I assume that a *lot of* finishing grad students have these very similar characteristics. I do think fit is a big factor especially for smaller schools where you'll hang out with the other few faculty a lot. And yes, probably the teaching demo gives some sort of estimate of how you would approach students. But how do you really distinguish *excellent* from *competent* teachers? As most people agree, student evals don't do it. I'd say teaching statements don't do it either. But then what?

[Amanda]

I don't doubt that some teaching schools, (perhaps many), look for *excellent* teachers, my point is only that not all do that. And by "competent", I meant something better than "okay", perhaps "good." If it was up to me all schools would look for "excellent"teachers, even research schools. I was actually disappointed to find out that not all search committees do this.

I would also say I agree with recent hire. *A lot* of people on the market have very good student evaluations and a wide variety of teaching experience. Hence to stand out, it often is the person who is not a hair better at teaching or researching (as recent hire says, how do you judge that anyway?), but is rather a specific fit to the department.