What We Waste When Faculty Hiring Goes Wrong

By KEVIN J.H. DETTMAR

Once again, the academic hiring season is upon us. In colleges and universities across the land, attention has shifted from major-league baseball to the Modern Language Association job list and similar compilations in other disciplines. Hiring committees again this year will have embarked on the process with high hopes; but we'll doubtless get it wrong, albeit with the best of intentions -- sometimes making professional decisions on (unconfessed or unrecognized) narrowly personal grounds