Because one can never be too careful
Please use this thread for straight-up questions and answers regarding the assembly of dossiers, mailing practices, letters of application, interviews, job-talks, etc. Basically anything involving the process, from A to Z.
A sometimes useful, and oftentimes entertaining, site to check out is the Chronicle of Higher Education's Discussion Forum. Two particularly relevant examples are here:
The Job Seeking Experience
The Interview Process
The threads are often not apposite, but they can be a treasure-trove of laughs and morale boosts. And don't forget to check the archives on this site for the past few years.
Monday, August 1, 2011
A Mixture of Frailties
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New wiki here:
http://classics.wikidot.com/1-2011-2012-classics-ancient-history-archaeology-job-market
Does anyone know what's up with the Loyola job? It's not listed on the HR site where we're supposed to apply.
Perhaps it will be listed on that site at the date on which the ad says that they will begin accepting applications? It's early, give it time.
Yes, but the language is: "Review of
applications will begin September 19, 2011, and will continue until the
position is filled." This does not suggest "we will start accepting applications on 9/19" but rather "we will start *evaluating* applications on 9/19".
You aren't suggesting that there may have been a bureaucratic error involved here, are you?
There has been a quite useful discussion of publishing one's first book on the philosophy blog leiterreports. Some of us might benefit especially David Chalmers's thoughts on the process (aided by other editors at OUP). Obviously, tenure expectations tend to be different for Classicists. http://leiterreports.typepad.com/blog/2011/08/deciding-to-write-a-book-and-getting-published-some-questions.html?cid=6a00d8341c2e6353ef015434f6d4f6970c#comment-6a00d8341c2e6353ef015434f6d4f6970c
How much dissertation talk is too much in a standard SLAC letter of interest? I've heard people swear up and down that any letter more than 1 page just ends up on the refuse pile, but I've also had on-campus interviews at places that received my two-page letter of interest. So, if there are any committee members out there, how much dissertation talk can you handle before your eyes glaze over?
"I've heard people swear up and down that any letter more than 1 page just ends up on the refuse pile."
Such people are jackasses. One and a half pages is the standard length.
What is the typical length of a writing sample if the ad is not specific regarding the number of pages desired? I've had a number of very different answers from my advisers. Thanks!
What is the typical length of a writing sample if the ad is not specific regarding the number of pages desired?
About twenty pages, double-spaced.
Here's a random theory that maybe the Wiki can test this year; looking over the new listings (multas per gentes et multa per aequora vecta, apparently), I can't but wonder if there is something to the fact that some jobs ask for transcripts and others don't. Specifically, I wonder if asking for a transcript signals a willingness to look at ABDs or new PhDs (e.g. Providence, Hendrix, Trinity), and not seeking a transcript is a hint that the committee is looking for established scholars (Stanford, Georgetown, SFSU). I'm a VAP, so I don't have anything at stake here, just wondering. Is there anything to this?
@anon 3:31
It's an interesting thought. However, I am intimately connected to one of the schools you mention and I can assure you that, at least in their case, their choice to request or not request transcripts isn't indicative of any attitude toward ABDs. They just don't find them important and rather rely upon writing samples and letters etc to gauge applicants.
Often (very often?) transcripts are requested just because the HR goblins proclaim that there must be transcripts.
Transcripts do the useful thing of showing that you actually did earn the degrees that you claim to have earned.
Question for all of you out there:
"I was wondering if you might help me. In the past I’ve been able to add jobs to the Famae volent and/or ClassicsWiki (?) pretty easily.
This time, it doesn’t seem quite so intuitive. Now, I can log onto the ClassicsWiki fine (password and so on). But I can’t seem to figure out how to get a job up on the Wiki – or is it the Famae volent blog itself I should be focusing on.
Anyway, any suggestions you have would be welcome."
Anybody out there feeling helpful?
Please note that Loyola University Maryland has begun review of candidates but still welcomes and encourages new applicants for the tenure-track job posted on the APA Placement Site:
LOYOLA UNIVERSITY MARYLAND – BALTIMORE, MD
The Classics Department of Loyola University Maryland announces a tenure-track position at the rank of Assistant Professor for AY 2012-13. Candidates should have a Ph.D. or be A.B.D. in Classics or Comparative Literature (with Ph.D. strongly preferred). Demonstrated excellence in teaching undergraduate Latin and Greek is strongly desired and the promise of such excellence is essential. We are seeking applications from candidates with strength or research interest in Late Antiquity or Greek literature, particularly before Alexander the Great. The successful candidate will be expected to teach three courses per semester (typically these courses include lower- and upper-division Latin and Greek and courses in translation), be actively engaged and successful in scholarship, and contribute to the department and University in service.
For more information about this position, and to apply, please go to www.loyola.edu/careers to complete the online application. A cover letter and a curriculum vitae are required and may be attached at the appropriate prompt on the application. Letters of recommendation from three professional references and official transcripts of all undergraduate and graduate work should be sent to: Joseph Walsh, Chair, Department of Classics, Loyola University Maryland, 4501 N. Charles St., Baltimore, MD 21210-2699 or by e-mail to jwalsh@loyola.edu. Review of applications will begin September 19, 2011, and will continue until the position is filled. We will hold interviews at the APA/AIA Annual Meeting in January 2012.
The University welcomes applicants from all backgrounds who can contribute to its educational mission. Loyola is an Equal Employment Opportunity Employer and welcomes applications from underrepresented groups, regardless of religious affiliation. Additional information is available at www.loyola.edu.
What to SCs really want when they ask for "evidence of effective teaching"? Do they want a complete teaching portfolio? Scans of student evaluations? Does a letter from faculty evaluators count? Thanks.
In response to the teaching eval question above:
I'd send two or three *complete* class evaluations, warts and all. You could also type up a document that quotes various student remarks in their evaluations. Definitely have a faculty mentor observe your teaching a few times and have them write a letter devoted to that issue.
I have a question also:
Looking forward to possible interview questions, how would folks deal with the following:
"How would you, in this position, help increase and sustain enrollment in Greek?"
I had this last year at a SLAC and I wasn't sure what to say to them. Any wiser, snark-absent, souls out there willing to share?
"I'd send two or three *complete* class evaluations, warts and all."
Seriously? If we're talking about paper apps, that much paper definitely will not fit in a standard 9x12 envelope.
Then send two envelopes. Another couple bucks in postage isn't going to kill you.
Maybe I'm missing something, but is there any real possibility that anyone on the committee is going to read 20, 50, or 100 full evaluations from each of the applicants? Call me crazy, but I doubt very much that people have that kind of time on their hands.
Having been on several search committees now (for both VAP and t-t positions), my advice is yes, send two or three FULL sets of teaching evaluations, and one-page numerical data (if available) for all your classes.
No, I didn't read every evaluation for all 100-plus applications. But I DID read every evaluation, including every comment, when I was trying to narrow down the files that I liked very much to a manageable short-list for the APA -- and so did my fellow committee-members. When we met with our preliminary lists of 25 or so candidates that we each liked, and then had to agree on an APA-interview short-list, those teaching evaluations got discussed in minute detail. So send them in.
Hope this helps.
Maybe I'm missing something, but is there any real possibility that anyone on the committee is going to read 20, 50, or 100 full evaluations from each of the applicants? Call me crazy, but I doubt very much that people have that kind of time on their hands.
I'm sorry if you don't like the advice, but it is solid and correct. Cherry-picked evaluations aren't any use to anybody; it has to be full sets. And as a commenter above says, while people may not read all of them for every candidate, they will read all of them for the candidates whom they're most interested in.
Also, in my experience, it doesn't take that long to read a full set of evaluations. Students generally will have written only a few sentences, and some of them will have written nothing at all.
I'm the one who originally asked about evidence of teaching excellence etc. Thanks everyone for your answers (especially the one above). I really wished that I'd asked this earlier, but at least I seem to have only sent the wrong things for one job. Again, thanks.
Out of curiosity, how can one tell whether or not a full set has been submitted? Depending on the school, these can be a bunch of loose slips of paper.
Out of curiosity, how can one tell whether or not a full set has been submitted? Depending on the school, these can be a bunch of loose slips of paper.
There will usually be a statistical cover sheet with each set, indicating the number of students enrolled in the class, the number of evaluations returned, and the average rating across however many criteria you're rated on. That should be included when you send the set on. if the sheet says your students returned 19 evaluations and there are only 9 in the packet, and says your students gave you an average of 6.5 while the ones in the packet average out to 9.5, that'd be a bad sign. If your evaluations were done on random scraps of paper and nobody ever tabulated or recorded them, I don't know what you do in that case.
At my grad university, comment sheets were separate from bubble-grids, thus effectively producing "random sheets of paper" with student evaluations scrawled on them. I simply wrote a cover-sheet myself, listing the class and stating that the enclosed represented the full set. There is no obvious way to prove you haven't taken the vindictive ones out, but there's also no obvious way to prove you haven't made up six obscure awards on your CV, either.
With the exception of writing samples, I doubt very much that it can hurt to send more material than an SC needs to see. If you send the full teaching evaluations for eight classes, they can read or ignore as many as they like. Far worse to send too little. At any rate, in my own experience students so often write praiseworthy but insubstantial comments that nobody will spend an undue length of time reading 200 of them. Even better are the cryptic inside jokes that only the students of that particular term will understand. Unless your students write essays on your evaluations, send as much as you have.
"With the exception of writing samples, I doubt very much that it can hurt to send more material than an SC needs to see."
I have to disagree. I'm currently a VAP in a department doing a search (in which I'm not involved as a candidate). We've been getting a great many applications that include materials that were not requested in the ad, and all faculty here are actually very annoyed with these applications. The problem is that our institution requires every page of an application be scanned and then individually uploaded into a database. When candidates send massive stacks of teaching evals, or pretty bound portfolios, the poor office assistant (and sometimes faculty) must scan all of these and go through the uploading process. Ours is a crappy computer system, so this is a rather lengthy process.
For my department, I don't think that sending in a bunch of unrequested materials will absolutely damn a candidate (if their application is good enough), but at least in my experience it definitely starts off such a candidate on the wrong foot.
Just my experience; certainly may be different elsewhere, but this year I'm following their advice and only sending what is specifically requested.
That's right. Send what the committee asks for. Flooding a department with maximum documentation is not a good strategy. Just figure out what an advertising institution wants, by inquiry if necessary, and then send all of those things but not a bunch of crap in addition to those things. If they want more, they will ask for it.
Yet another voice of agreement. We are doing a search and a lot of discussion went into our ad. We want the things we asked for. If we want more from a candidate, we'll ask. We also want, btw, the letter to be appropriate to the job and the kind of institution advertised. If you do Latin prose and are applying for a job for a job in Greek philosophy, at least make a case for yourself.
Well, though I hesitate to risk offending my betters, if an SC knows exactly what it wants candidates to send, it should make its expectations crystal clear in the job ad. Though I'm sure that neither of the nice people posting in this thread work for departments that have requested "evidence of teaching effectiveness," any department that fails to make their ad clearer than that deserves whatever it gets. Those who are left to divine just what you have in mind by that phrase would be quite reasonable to send more rather than less, and for precisely the same reasons given above in favor of sending everything. People on the market dont' have any more time to send special letters of inquiry to your department to figure out what you mean than your secretary has to make photocopies of excess material. If, of course, your department's ad is quite specific, then candidates who don't send what it asks for can rightly be convicted of carelessness. The same goes for the letter being "appropriate to the job." If you absolutely don't want a specialist in Latin prose, then don't say that you "prefer" Greek poetry, say "the candidate must specialize in Greek poetry." Otherwise, I'm going to assume that you chose the word "prefer" carefully, know what it means, mean what it says, and aren't going to refuse to consider my application.
Ad October 30, 2011 1:40 PM, the "teaching effectiveness" language is very common and I imagine search committees just assume that you've been on the market before and so know it or that the faculty who are helping you with your job search will tell you what it means.
As for "prefer," I think that generally is consciously adopted language: it means that the search intends to find someone in the preferred category but might hire outside of it, depending on what the pool looks like.
The vague postings are also a sign of disagreements within departments -- something that won't be resolved just because it makes matters confusing for applicants.
I remember a few years ago one department was looking for an assistant professors and making it known informally that they expected the person to become chair within a few years. But they ended up hiring someone so wet behind the ears that there is simply no chance this person would become chair in the near future. Like I said, departments often don't have their acts together enough to frame meaningful ads.
Opinions: if an ad says "completed applications must be received in hard copy by this date," is it worth sending one that will arrive the day after? (Didn't have a chance to get to FedEx during the week, and it turns out they don't overnight on Sunday! I'm thinking I probably have to give this one a miss...)
I'd send the file. You already have done all of the work, so now it is just a matter of ponying up the cash to Fed Ex.
"...the "teaching effectiveness" language is very common and I imagine search committees just assume that you've been on the market before and so know it or that the faculty who are helping you with your job search will tell you what it means."
You seem to have missed the point of the discussion, which is that it is in fact unclear what an ad that uses this language is asking for. The disagreement among people who are actually sitting on SCs shows that. Some say that only full sets of evaluations are of any use; others say that they don't want to be flooded with "unrequested material." If "evidence of teaching effectiveness" is what the ad asks for, then a candidate who sends full sets of evaluations for every class she's taught is sending what the ad asks for. If that isn't what the SC wants, it shouldn't use that language. If it does use that language, its members shouldn't gripe when candidates send more or less than they would prefer.
Also, assuming we've been on the market before is problematic. Unless you want to go ahead and just stick a big ole "ABDs need not apply" tag in there and be unambiguous about it.
Some say that only full sets of evaluations are of any use; others say that they don't want to be flooded with "unrequested material."
The only disagreement has been about whether you should send full sets for three courses or for two. Nobody has said you should send incomplete sets and nobody has said you should send all of the evaluations for every course you have taught.
Also, assuming we've been on the market before is problematic. Unless you want to go ahead and just stick a big ole "ABDs need not apply" tag in there and be unambiguous about it.
This is why I said "search committees just assume that you've been on the market before and so know it or that the faculty who are helping you with your job search will tell you what it means."
But the faculty at one's home institution may not know what it means (i.e. what SCs mean by it). I'm at one of the big grad programs; they tell us not to send out evaluations when "evidence of teaching effectiveness" is requested. I've had to learn that this is "wrong" the hard way.
But the faculty at one's home institution may not know what it means (i.e. what SCs mean by it). I'm at one of the big grad programs; they tell us not to send out evaluations when "evidence of teaching effectiveness" is requested. I've had to learn that this is "wrong" the hard way.?
Huh. What do they say constitutes "ETE"? Just letters from people who have observed you teaching?
And a statement of teaching philosophy, syllabi, teaching awards, etc. It's emphasized that evaluations are something you send out when a specific request for additional materials is made.
From now on I'm definitely sending out evaluations, but the idea that I might not even be considered for jobs I've already applied for because of it isn't pleasant.
As a first principle I'd say that you should contact the SC and ask what exactly they'd like to have in your file. A quick phone-call will solve this in a couple of minutes.
That tack aside, one way around this may be to send, in addition to a teaching philosophy, letters of support, syllabi, etc. etc. etc., the complete evals for two courses, but include a one-page graphic/graph illustrating those evals, along with choice quotes. This way the SC can see at a glance what, at least in a quantitative sense, the evals are doing.
I admit that this doesn't really solve the problem, however. I still support sending more info than less (when the ad is vague like this) since the SC can discard what they won't use, and it is likely other candidates will be erring on the side of too much info as well. Unfortunately the person most inconvenienced by all of this (in addition to applicants) is the office administrator in charge of compiling dossiers, and hopefully SCs can use more exact language in the future. The more phone calls and fat applications they receive now, the less likely they are to mess up the ad language in the future.
I love the idea that a statement of teaching philosophy can count as "evidence of teaching excellence." That's only slightly better than including a letter from your mom testifying that you're the best teacher in the whole entire world.
Yes, because we all know that teaching evaluations are such reliable indicators of teaching excellence.
If I can get a letter *and* evals from your mom testifying to my effectiveness, I think that definitely should carry weight.
Yeah, I'm not saying that evaluations are the gospel truth. And I don't think you can reliably tell good teaching from mediocre teaching from a set of evaluations, and there's even a kind of "low expectations" poor teaching that ends up looking OK in evaluations ("I learned so much!" can = "I got an A, so I must have learned a lot!"). But I do think you can often tell from the comments (not from the scores) on a set of evaluations when somebody has been a complete disaster in a course.
Conversely, I don't think you can tell anything at all about a person's teaching from a statement of teaching philosophy. I have absolutely no use for them.
Statements of Teaching Philosophy are a load of horse-shit.
I was on the market three years ago, and there were a dozen or so places that requested one. I spent about an hour writing something that sounded plausible, and sent it along. I am sure nobody ever read it, as I was never asked about it. Perhaps they are something the HR-weenies force on searches.
My advice: write some bullshit that sounds good, or ask a friend if you can copy hers and use that. It's a hoop to jump through that offers absolutely no useful information. Treat it as such.
To clarify: statements of teaching philosophy have nothing whatever to say about the abilities or even attitude of the candidate. Instead, asking for them is a signal put forth by the advertising institution. It indicates "we care about teaching, unlike those other institutions that don't ask for them." But it's impossible to say what level of the institution has mandated them, or exactly why, and so it isn't even a good gauge of the outlook of the institution.
That's not to say that it can't be personally satisfying or even enlightening to write one, just that reading one doesn't actually get you anywhere. That's why I'm not interested in them.
My sense with the SOTP is that it's a box you have to tick. A really awful one can sink you, and an excellent one will make you stand out - but for the most part, as long as you can write a half-way competent one, that's all you need to do. It's just like ticking the other boxes: conference presentations (but not too many); teaching a language + a lecture course; an article (at least on the way out, not necessarily essential if you're ABD); maybe a little service (but not too much). In other words, don't spend too long on it, unless you're capable of writing a real barn-stormer (I've seen a couple, so I know they exist, but they are few and far between, and mine certainly isn't memorable).
I was told by faculty and a teaching center to send as "evidence of effective teaching"
1) teaching philosophy statement
2) summary statistics and sample student comments
3) an innovative assignment
They said never to bombard a committee with full sets of evals unless asked. While I may now panic that I've been "doing it wrong", this does not seem to have hurt me in my quest for a SLAC job which is what I now have.
If a committee is not happy with what you send for this, but they think you might fit, they will ask if they want full evals. No need to panic, I'd say.
If a committee is not happy with what you send for this, but they think you might fit, they will ask if they want full evals. No need to panic, I'd say.
Yes, this is right. Very few people will discard the application of an otherwise interesting candidate for not containing exactly the right assortment of teaching materials. They'll just ask you to send on to them the parts that aren't there. Be ready to send them, though, since committees often don't start looking carefully at the files for quite a while, and there may not be a lot of time between when they realize they don't have what they want and when they start making their first round of decisions about the pool.
"conference presentations (but not too many)"? What's wrong with giving papers, provided one is also publishing? And what would "too many" be?
(I'm not asking because I plan to change my C.V., but simply because I've never seen or heard such advice before.)
In my experience, student evaluations are not useful for the comments, which are usually fluff. The numbers do tend to track teaching competence, though, at least in language courses. Reviewing the evaluations for the graduate instructors in our program usually confirms the assessments we can make from other indicators, like in-class observation. So I take them seriously when reviewing applications.
I would tend to agree that SCs should be as specific as possible in their advertisements if they're going to be picky. The easiest thing, of course, is to ask for a minimal amount of material and to request more from the most interesting and viable candidates. So far as candidates are concerned, though, I doubt very much that sending more or less than an SC wants will make the difference between an interview and a rejection. Of course, if there are explicit requirements and you fail to observe them, you probably won't fare well. Otherwise, though, anybody who would throw out the application of an otherwise interesting candidate because she sent too many teaching evaluations is just doing the rest of us a favor: freeing up a promising candidate and sparing her from the sorrow of having such petty colleagues.
For what it's worth, I've known some successful people who have sent the minimum and others who have sent the maximum amount of teaching-related material in response to vague ads. There may be a bit of mass job market hysteria going on here. Rest assured, whether or not you get a job has much less to do with anything you actually do than you could ever be happy to believe.
What's wrong with giving papers, provided one is also publishing? And what would "too many" be?
Provided you're publishing, you're fine - but that's a big "provided". But an ABD or recently-finished scholar who is giving 3-4 conference papers a year and has nothing out, or something forthcoming in a non-peer-reviewed setting, raises a red flag: is this person actually capable of doing the sort of work required to publish, or can they only get as far as the sort of inchoate ideas necessary to write an abstract for a conference? For an ABD, it also raises the question of how much work is being done on the diss/how much is written, particularly if many of the papers are at best tangentially related to the diss.
My post above was mainly aimed at ABDs - I have found from sitting on a couple of SCs over the past few years that the perceived pressure to present at as many conferences as possible, teach as many courses as possible, and sit on as many committees as possible, have had their impact on dissertations: this is not always the case, but many people who have done vast amounts of stuff that is not their dissertation submit writing samples (from the diss) that are pretty weak.
In my experience, student evaluations are not useful for the comments, which are usually fluff. The numbers do tend to track teaching competence, though, at least in language courses. Reviewing the evaluations for the graduate instructors in our program usually confirms the assessments we can make from other indicators, like in-class observation. So I take them seriously when reviewing applications.
Oddly, to a remark I made above about the comments—and not the number—being useful in indicating severe incompetence I almost added that of our grad students I've observed teaching every last one who has poor comments has also been a disaster in the classroom. When you've repeatedly seen with your own eyes people doing exactly the things described in the comments, it's hard not to see some value in them. The numbers on the other hand I take less seriously because there is a strong tendency to mark instructors down for not handing out As left and right (that said, truly atrocious numbers are clearly a bad sign as well).
For what it's worth, I've known some successful people who have sent the minimum and others who have sent the maximum amount of teaching-related material in response to vague ads. There may be a bit of mass job market hysteria going on here. Rest assured, whether or not you get a job has much less to do with anything you actually do than you could ever be happy to believe.
I'll add that over the past few years I have seen the odd SC member coming on here and leaving comments about applications that I consider completely deranged. The thread running through them, I'd say, is that they feel that they or their institution have not been adequately respected by the tone or content of the application, although the form that this slap in the face has taken can vary. The lesson that I would derive is that there are a few people out there with a bug up their butt about this or that and that no matter what you do you'll probably be throwing somebody out there into a blind rage about something or other. So, accept that, get your applications as right as is feasible, and just send them in. You may even derive some satisfaction from knowing that somewhere out there there is a warped little person who is absolutely bug-eyed fuming that you've dared to mention that you're interested in your research or that you actually care about teaching.
Honestly, the problem about "demonstration of excellent teaching" would be solved if recommenders would take the time to read their students' or colleagues' evaluations and contextualize them. The candidate can also help by providing in the cover letter a summary of teaching (courses, stats) and a clear statement indicating a commitment to the teaching side of the job.
From my experience on SC's with over a hundred applications I can say that it would be impossible to read over evaluations, nor am I sure of the benefits of doing so. On the other hand, the most potent of recommendation letters (for teaching) were those that gave details and not just worn platitudes or general epithets of commendation.
What if someone early career is publishing steadily (an article a year) but rarely attends conferences? Does that tend to raise any concerns?
Unless you're talking about someone still in grad school, I'd think an article a year is slow, not steady.
I'd like to ask the same question as above but with a better publication rate (say 2-3 articles a year and a book on schedule to be in print by 3-4 years out from the PhD, with work on the second book in an early stage).
um, I think 1.34 needs a reality check. If you look at the cvs of most assistant profs at legit universities (even ivies), few publish more than an article a year, and many publish less. 3-5 articles + a book by the time you're reviewed for tenure seems about right.
9:37 here. I have to commend 1:34 on her/his production, but my teaching duties hinder that rate. My understanding is an article a year and a book underway is respectable. Since I'm not on a TT but hoping to elbow my way into one, I hesitate to dump all my material into journals if it won't count when/if I get my ticket punched for TT ride.
Don't look at the publication rates of Assistant Profs; what makes sense is to look at recently promoted Associate Profs (people who actually got tenure) and see what kind of production they averaged in those 6-7 years before tenure.
Not all articles are equal. If—and I realize this isn't necessarily to be taken for granted—if your tenure process actually takes account of scale, significance, and quality, then talking in terms of articles/year is pretty meaningless.
For those who haven't figured it out, most of the people on this blog posting about tenure publication requirements don't actually know what they're talking about. Expectations vary widely by institution. If you want to know what the expectations are, talk to tenured professors and look at their CVs. Don't listen to a bunch of graduate students and VAPs who apparently haven't done the same.
A quick question about writing samples: Are bibliographies considered to count toward the page limit?
And the writing samples have been solicited. But not mine.
Drinking and reading Famae Volent is not advised.
Am I the only one who feels compelled to apologise to my significant other for repeatedly not making the cut?
Is all of this even remotely worth it?
no
Depends on how it works out.
No, I don't think taking MIT's lack of interest in you as a fail. I also applied and a writing sample was not requested (at least I wasn't asked for one, though a 'missing' came up for it in my online application). Sure, it smarts a bit, but with the market being what it is, and what it has been, the best you can do is take your shot knowing that the odds are not in your favor. There are simply too many variables beyond your control...and none for which you should apologize. Now, if you have to pimp out your significant other to pay for your heroin addiction when all this is over...that you should apologize for.
The Wiki now lists a position in Roman Archaeology/History at Wilfrid Laurier University. Does anybody know whether this position is actually open? The AIA website lists a suspiciously similar position (http://www.archaeological.org/jobs/4523), but that position began on July 1, 2011. Has someone carelessly added this to the current Wiki, or is there another position posted out there somewhere?
I posted the position - it appeared in the current edition of the Canadian Classics Bulletin. I'll post the full details in the job postings thread.
I used the google: https://web.wlu.ca/academic/postings/item/01242012TueNov15095711EST2011.html
Too lazy to post everything else from the page.
Weird - I posted the WLU job in the job postings thread, but somebody deleted it. Servius, what gives?
For the Mizzou job that requires uploading a cover letter, can anyone be more specific as to where on the application website one might do that? There's a place to upload a resume/CV and a page for personal information, but nothing that seems to correspond to a "Cover Letters and Attachments section" as mentioned in the ad.
Re Mizzou: I had the same problem. I uploaded my "resume" when it asked and then all of a sudden it basically said that I had completed the app! I've been trying for more than a week to work it out, but I'm at a loss. I'll probably email the contact tomorrow.
re: mizzou
i was confused by their unwieldy system too. you have to go back to the application, and at the bottom of one the pages, there is an option to add an attachment. that's how i got the cover letter uploaded. just scroll around, you'll find it.
ok, i just looked at it again. you two now *officially* owe me.
if you log in to their system, then click on "Accepted/Unaccepted Applications," a new page will open up, near the bottom of which will a line that reads
+Add Attachment
Click on that, and upload away.
You, my compatriot, are a credit to both FV and the field in general.
Re: Mizzou
Thanks for the help!
WTF is Mizzou?
University of Missouri, VAP.
RE: Mizzou: Thanks for your help!
I think part of the PS problem stems from the PS' view that it somehow = a colleague of classicists, a "member of the profession" (check out the PS web page for what it asks of SCs).
No, the PS doesn't = "member of the profession." It constitutes a paid support staff. There may be a direct correlation between the PS' mistaken notion it = a "member of the profession" and behavior.
Advice to candidates: if your cover letter is 5 pages...you need an editor.
plus ça change?
do any of those APA committee folks read this blog? part of me hopes that they do...
I do too, because change is going to have to come from people in power. We candidates are in too precarious a position to risk causing much of a stir; the PS knows and exploits this.
Well, another year (#3), no interviews. I think I keep trying because I scan websites and see some people actually in tenured and tenure track jobs and ask, how'd THEY get hired? Truly, the classics job market makes no sense.
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