University Affairs

‘Tis the season of lists and reviews, and Career Sense will uphold this media tradition with this, the final post of 2009. Career Sense is now a year old, and has acquired a regular cadre of roughly 1200-1500 readers/mth, 90 of whom have signed on for regular feeds through RSS.

There were a couple of highlights this year for me. One was speaking at the Career Corner at Congress, and providing one-on-one feedback to attendees wanting feedback on their CVs. While I can reach many more of you online than in person, the ‘hi-touch’ element is a great way to keep it personal.

I was also honoured to be one of 3 finalists in the ‘Best Blog’ category for the 2009 Online Publishing Awards. Given this is my first foray into blogging, the acknowledgment was both a surprise and a delight.

Perhaps the posting I felt most strongly about was my March 25^th post: Hiring freezes raise issues for PhDs on the job market. In this post I called on PhD programs to be more forthcoming to perspective students on the realities of the academic job market.

At the end of that post, I inserted a poll asking whether or not you would have chosen to pursue a PhD if you thought there was a good chance you wouldn’t be able to land a tenure track position. Of the 149 respondents so far, 106 voted ‘no’ and 43 voted ‘yes’. Clearly there are people (like myself) who are pursuing their PhD for reasons beyond the job prospects. But there are undoubtedly many who simply didn’t know the job market was going to be this bad, or who had been assured hundreds of jobs would open to replace retiring faculty. Hopefully, this will change in 2010.

In all, 372 people have voted in 9 polls this past year – not a bad stat to end the year on. I’ve enjoyed reading your comments and talking to you a Congress. I wish you and yours a blissfully peaceful holiday season, and look forward to hearing from you in January when I return from holidays myself.

Be well and have a happy New Year!!

Carolyn

Have you been watching the videos that have been posted from this year’s Career Corner at Congress? For those of you who didn’t make it to Ottawa, this is your chance to see and hear from some of the experts in academic career issues who spoke this year.

The other day, I was listening to David Ainsworth’s talk on career in the United Nations for PhDs. He’s quite a good speaker, and his talk is full of useful advice for PhDs longing for a career in this field. In the first clip of this talk, “Does my graduate degree matter?” Ainsworth emphasizes the need to carefully select the subject of one’s thesis. Hmmm – strategic thesis choosing – now there’s a Pandora’s Box of possibilities. (Text continues below)

At a time when there so much dissention over the status of tenure in the university system, and the supposed protection it affords scholars from the infiltration of market influences and other agendas on the ‘pure’ pursuit of knowledge, Ainsworth’s comment bears a second take. He promotes a pragmatic approach: “Designing your thesis on a topic of relevancy to a particular agency” [is a good way to prepare for a career in the UN].

But, one wonders, what if the premise or the findings of said research are critical of the UN mandate? Perhaps what is really being promoted is not so much expert knowledge of a relevant topic but also a diplomatic avoidance of irritating one’s future employer. All of a sudden pragmatism is sounding a little more sinister.

Of course, it could be argued, one is unlikely to want to work for an organization with skeletons in the proverbial boardroom, but that begs the question. It also runs far from of the point Ainsworth was trying to make. But nonetheless it deserves consideration, particularly in a hostile job market.

If you want to make sure you can transition out of academic reasonably seamlessly, either by choice or necessity, it would seem reasonable to suggest that having expertise in relevant areas would get you farther than the converse. Even in academe, some dissertation topics can be more desirable or less impressive than others under the scrutiny of selection committees.

It seems to be more a question of degree rather than of absolutes. How far can you let the priorities of your desired job market (academic or not) preside over your dissertation research before you cross the line dividing pragmatism from ingratiation?

How about you? If you knew that a particular topic was more likely to be viewed favourably by a prospective employer – academic or alternative – would you feel justified in pursuing that topic even if you really would have preferred a different direction, methodology, or emphasis?

A common question I get during advising appointments is whether or not one should submit a teaching dossier if it is not requested in the posting. The role of teaching dossiers in general has been of the centre of some debates since they began to emerge in the 1980s. Some folks (rightly) claim that universities have become much more cognizant of the need to hire excellent scholars who are also gifted teachers and the dossier is a compelling way of providing evidence of the quality of candidates’ pedagogical abilities. Others believe that, especially in reach-intensive universities, the focus of selection will be on research and in such cases a teaching dossier will be less valued then a strong research agenda. However, even then, candidates will be required to provide some evidence of pedagogical mastery in their fields.

My philosophy is – when it comes to applying in a job market as tight as this one – unless a posting explicitly indicates not to submit extra materials, anything that might help differentiate you from other candidates will only help. If you are concerned that your teaching dossier will not get the full attention that it deserves, how can you make sure the selection committee understands what a great teacher you actually are?

To start, read the recent article published in the Career Resources of University Affairs outlining what to include in your teaching dossier.

This will give you an idea of what a thorough treatment of your ability to teach effectively might cover. However the clincher here is the suggested length – 12 pages. When a teaching dossier is not listed in a posting, it is a lot to ask a busy committee member to slough through that unrequested documentation. In fact, in some cases, selection committees may refuse to consider any materials not listed in the posting in order to keep the playing field equal.

Considering this, it is only prudent to consider alternative ways to distribute the strongest elements of your teaching dossier throughout the rest of your application package. Here are a few suggestions that I have given students on how to do this:

1. Develop a shortened version of your dossier – no more than 1-2 pages
2. Make sure one of your referees can provide an informed description of your skills as a teacher. It may be useful to provide this referee with stats from student feedback forms (if available) and to request that they sit in on a couple of classes so they can make specific references to the strategies you used.
3. In the teaching section of your CV, rather than just listing the courses you have taught, you can provide relevant details about the student populations in these classes and in some cases, a short description of innovative elements you used to increase comprehension or engagement. Also mention where you took on more the regular duties of a TA.
4. In your letter, be sure to have a good paragraph explaining your teaching philosophy and how you integrated this into your teaching methodology. Of course, highlight any accolades or awards you have received for your teaching.

When a committee is faced with hundreds of strong, targeted applications, it could well be that your accomplishment as a teacher may draw their attention. If teaching is your forte, the invitation to come on campus is when you really want to shine. If you do get such an opportunity, make sure to ask for as many possibilities to meet with students, both undergrad and graduate. Your obvious love of teaching and genuine interest talking with students will validate everything you wrote in your application package and can make a lasting impression on the committee.