A Late Search

In my previous entry, I talked about how our management search fell through because of the immigration issues of the candidate’s spouse. In the comments there is some discussion of how to proceed, and I thought I’d follow up on that discussion.

We’ve decided to try a quick search for a tenure-track hire, perhaps even by the end of the academic year. This approach is somewhat unorthodox, but here are our reasons.
   
First of all, we are in a position in which we must make a hire. Students are registered, the fall schedule is set, and faculty members are assigned to other courses. Because we’re a small institution, we normally have only two faculty members in management even when we’re at full strength, so the absence of one without a lot of advance planning can cause big problems. And, as I’ve discussed before, we’re in a small town in northwestern Iowa, and our adjunct pool is neither broad nor deep.
   
We’re also gambling on the nature of the market this year. In the fall, when we advertised this position, we did not receive many applications. We are used to being passed up in the application process by candidates who don’t want to live in rural Iowa, and by people who have professional ambitions they believe cannot be met at an institution like ours.
   
We suspect, however, that some strong potential candidates may be rethinking their approach. Our job holds a lot of promise for the right person, and while we certainly don’t pay in the league of research universities, what we plan to offer is plenty to live a very good life in our area, where the average house costs little more than $100,000, and car insurance and other costs of living are not high.
   
We’re hoping that searching for a tenure-track hire, rather than conducting a more conventional late-year search for a visiting faculty member, will yield us a better pool and result in a viable hire. We shall see.