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March 02, 2009, 11:13 AM ET
How Do We Define the 'Best' Candidate?
Any conversation about academic hiring will eventually light on the issue of how to define the “best” candidate.
In our profession, the ideal junior faculty member is ostensibly defined as someone who has the potential to make a significant research contribution in a field. But the tremendous majority of academic jobs are at institutions that have significantly different needs from that ideal.
At a university like mine, which is residential and almost entirely undergraduate on its home campus, we certainly want new faculty members to have potential as scholars. Scholarly productivity, however, is probably secondary to a candidate’s teaching skills and willingness to contribute to the life of the university and the surrounding community. We define the “best” candidate in a different way than we would if we were a different kind of institution.
Some academics will undoubtedly think that our definition is a recipe for mediocrity. However, their definition of “mediocre” is every bit as situational as any definition of excellence would be. A faculty member whose overriding interest is research would not be happy and productive on our campus, and would either leave quickly or become disgruntled and bitter. Such attitudes can cause substantial tensions in a department or even across the campus.
Faculty members at research institutions sometimes scoff at the priorities of institutions like mine. Many graduate students are acculturated to think that a job at such a place constitutes a failure on their part. But for the right kind of person — someone who truly values teaching and advising undergraduates, who is genuinely engaged in an academic field, who produces some scholarship, and who is willing to pitch in to the life of the university and the community — a job at an institution like mine can be a rewarding and challenging opportunity to thrive.
For us, that kind of person is the “best” candidate. How would you, and your institution, define the “best”?
Categories: General-interest, Faculty-hiring
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