In our newest "how can we help you?" thread, a reader writes:
One piece of advice I often see for job seekers is to "get to know the department to which you are applying." This is great advice! I'd love to know how other people go about researching a department, its needs, its interests, and its preferences. It would be great if at least some of this advice did not involve tapping one's personal network, as many grad students/job seekers may not have networks that are similarly robust or knowledgeable about the ins and outs of other departments.
Interesting query. I'm not sure I think it is a great idea to try to research a department's "needs", "interests", and "preferences", as in my experience different members of the same department may have very different (and often deeply incompatible) visions about what these things should be. My sense instead is the "get to know the department to which you are applying" advice is to research and develop familiarity with what the people in the department work on and teach, features of the program (e.g. major coursework and minors offered), and features of the college or university (e.g., new initiatives, etc.). And I'm not inclined to think that one need tap one's personal network to get know these kinds of things.
Basically, my sense is that when people say, "get to know the department to which you are applying", they are saying this because it can be important to search committees to come across like you've at least done some research on the place you're applying to and the people who work there. For example, if you're on a campus visit, it surely looks far better to say to a member of a department, "I checked out your paper on X and thought it is interesting" rather than "What do you work on?", or "I know your department offers a minor in Y" rather than "What minors does your department offer?"
Anyway, these are just my thoughts. It would be great to hear from search committee members what they think about these matters, as well as from anyone else who may be in the know and have any helpful advice for the OP!
Marcus is correct that getting to know the department = understand the teaching responsibilities of faculty / the department's role in the university. For instance, you should be *very* aware of whether the university has a core curriculum and what, if anything, philosophy's role in that core curriculum is. Or if you are someone with an AOS in political philosophy or philosophy of law: does the university have a pre-law program, and what is philosophy's role in that program? Ditto for bioethics or other similar programs.
Posted by: TT | 01/04/2023 at 12:26 PM
One thought that might help: Department/University websites are very frequently out of date, so it may be worth checking other sources if you can to make sure the information you are getting is accurate and up to date.
A couple of ways you might do that:
1. Check the personal websites of faculty, since quite a few people list the courses they are currently teaching and other such information there (although, again, these are often out of date).
2. Reach out to in the department to confirm. Obviously this is easiest if you personally or at least professionally know someone there. But I don't think it would be a problem to ask the contact for the job search (there is usually some such person listed) if the question is about something that is actually relevant to your application (and might even be taken as a good sign that you are really interested).
For example (and I think this is the sort of thing people have in mind more generally with this advice): I have taught a sideline in bioethics for a while, but don't do research in bioethics. I see that a department I was applying to had previously offered bioethics but didn't seem to be currently offering it (according to their website). I might reach out to ask if the bioethics course is currently offered, if the person teaching it is permanent faculty, and whether the department is interested in offering again. All going well, I can then I can offer to teach it, along with my more directly research linked teaching.
Posted by: Anon Postdoc | 01/04/2023 at 01:00 PM