Answering the "how do you balance...?" question

In our job-market discussion thread, anon asks:

I have an interview question. What kind of answer is suitable to the question "how would you balance teaching, research, and service?". Is this a question about time-management, priorities, or something else? Any thoughts on this would be greatly appreciated.

Good question! I'd be curious to hear search committee members weigh in, but here are a few quick thoughts...

Although I can only speculate here, my guess is that for R1 jobs, this question may be intended to ascertain two related things: whether a candidate has effective time-management skills related to research, as well as research productivity as their first priority. When I was first heading out on the job-market from grad school, I vaguely recall hearing that this question aims to suss out whether a candidate is likely to get bogged down with other things (too much time on teaching prep, meeting with students, etc.). But again, this is only what I vaguely recall hearing. Are there any people who have served on searches at R1's who can weigh in?

When it comes to jobs at more teaching-focused schools, my sense is that the question is also probably trying to suss out time-management skills and priorities--albeit somewhat differently. Whereas at R1's new hires (and tenure candidates) are overwhelmingly evaluated on the basis of research productivity, at teaching-focused schools one is generally expected to have teaching as one's first priority--but one is also expected to perform well in research and service as well. Consequently, my sense is that answering this sort of question well is probably trickier in interviews for these kinds of jobs. One probably needs to make it clear that one values teaching highly, while making it clear that one values research and service as well--and that one has effectively time management habits to accomplish all three well.

Finally, I suspect that when it comes to either kind of job (R1 or teaching-focused places), it is probably a good idea not to provide a B.S. answer, that is, an answer beyond one's level experience. For example, if your only experience is grad school, then you really don't have experience balancing a full teaching course-load, research expectations, and robust levels of service--in which case, while it's probably a good idea to say how you plan to balance things, it's probably not best to pretend you have it all figured out (since that may just make you look naive!).

But again, these are just my thoughts. Any search committee members out there willing to weigh in?

Comments

[Mike Titelbaum]

Coming from an R1 search committee perspective, I totally agree on the not BS'ing point. If you're ABD, don't pretend like you have it all figured out. You could maybe give an example of some balancing you've had to do in the past, or explain some good advice someone gave you, or say something like, "I imagine in my first year I'll devote a lot of time to developing my courses, but after that once I'm re-teaching things I should have more time for research." Or maybe segue into your plans for how to generate immediate publications from your dissertation.

On the other hand if you've been in a job for a while, probably a good idea to mention techniques that have worked for you, and maybe be reflective about how the balancing challenges in the (potential) new job will differ from the challenges in your present job.

[Amanda]

I should mention this is just another example of why adjuncting as a grad is a good idea. Some grads really do have to balance a lot - I had to balance teaching 4 courses at 2 institutions, writing a dissertation, serving as an RA, and publishing. This is just to say that if you have done adjunct work, or other work even, it is something to talk about in the "how would you balance" question.