I just returned from my first real live campus visit. It was at a major university about three hours from my home in Washington for a tenure-track job in public policy.
I had two weeks to prepare. Fortunately, I'd just read "Making the Most of Your Campus Interview" on this Web site, which offered some of the best advice I'd heard: Prepare well, then just try to relax and enjoy it.
This felt similar to running a marathon -- intensive training leading up to it, then a brief period to taper and pull it all together (about a half-hour on the train before I arrived), then plunging into the race. I suspected the visit would require pacing and endurance. I stuffed a Power Bar and bag of trail mix in my bag since I'd been warned not to count on eating much during meals.
At the outset I decided to make the whole experience easier on all of us by not getting too uptight. I figured that if I were really nervous it would only make the interviewers uncomfortable, and it certainly wouldn't help me. Even if I were nervous, I wasn't going to act it.
I met the dean of the school first. Then I had half-hour meetings with several faculty members, including one who's a specialist on state legislatures. I had just ordered his latest book from Amazon.com and skimmed it on the train up. This was a good thing, since his orientation conflicted in ways with mine, and it let me talk to him about some of our differences in a more relaxed environment before the job talk itself.
I got the campus tour and then met four faculty members for dinner at what appeared to be the trendiest restaurant in town. Again, I tried to relax and enjoy it, but not to relax too much. Everyone drank wine, so I had a glass, and ordered bite-sized food that wouldn't struggle with me on the plate. Despite being acutely aware that this was part of my interview, I actually enjoyed the meal. Then they dropped me at the hotel.
Under other circumstances I would have used the gym and ridden up and down in the glass elevator. But I was still on the clock. I ordered a wake-up call, set the alarm for 6:30 and was asleep by 10:45.
In the morning, I went over my job talk once more, repeating the hard parts several times. Then I was off and running: breakfast with the department chairman (a genuinely nice man) to talk about what I might teach, then more interviews and lunch with the grad students.
Last of all, the Job Talk. It was based on my dissertation and is about the devolution of welfare from the federal government to the states. While I had feared I would be brain-dead by the time we got to it, the delay actually made it easier, since by then I had met most of the people in the room. Fortunately, I'd delivered it multiple times already -- to my job-hunting group at school, to a friend who does welfare policy, and to my partner, Tim, under battle conditions (I stood at a podium while he hurled hostile questions at me).
Once I got going, it was largely automatic pilot. My handful of laugh lines elicited the desired chuckles, though a few people looked sleepy. A number took notes, and I tried to anticipate what trouble they might be cooking up.
There were only 15 minutes left for the Q&A. A couple of department members made it clear they were unpersuaded by my case. No one was unpleasant or aggressive, but one in particular, something of a big name and the one key person I hadn't already met, was blunt in his appraisal. Even so, I tried not to get flustered or defensive. The newest member of the faculty did ruffle me a bit when she brought up work she'd done on welfare in the states that suggested I hadn't done all my homework. It was useful information, but unfortunately the kind you wish you'd had before the presentation rather than during it.
Still, it was over quickly, and nothing disastrous happened. I tried to remember that academics are a critical lot and rarely respond to anything with "Hey, cool, whatever."
After the talk, I met again with the chairman. He was encouraging, though they still had other candidates to see, and said they would make their decision in several weeks. On the train home I finally wound down, drank a beer and took a nap.
In many ways, the job seems wonderful. I liked almost everyone I met and it seems to be a truly collegial atmosphere. I liked the mix of policy and politics -- not the "pure" approach of many policy programs -- and the job itself would be a good combination of teaching and applied research.
But it's the sort of place (much to its credit) where faculty members are on campus five days a week and are engaged both with each other and the students. I'm not sure how I could handle the three-hour distance from my personal life. Tim has a great job and is not in a position to move. I love Washington, I love living with him and don't want to rip up my roots here.
In a department where people materialize for a day or two to teach and then disappear, it might be possible to commute. But I don't know how realistic it would be to stay there during the week and come back to Washington for my life. It seems like a hell of a way to live, and expensive. It's all still theoretical, until and unless I actually get offered a job, but I want to be prepared just in case.
In the meantime, I'm looking forward to getting back to work. I want to just forget the job market for a while, teach and edit a couple more chapters. I've applied to graduate in May 1999, but unless I get on the stick, I'm in danger of ringing in the next millennium still A.B.D.
Robin Warner is a pseudonym.
