A few years ago I was sitting at a lunch table at a conference, and a gentleman sat down next to me and introduced himself. I replied, “Oh, we’ve met! I interviewed with you for a faculty position about 10 years ago and … ha, ha … you passed me over for another candidate.” The look on the man’s face was priceless, as he ransacked his memory to retrieve my name and tried to apologize for passing me over, all at the same time.

“Oh, what a favor you did me in not hiring me, though!,” I continued with a smile. “I was A.B.D. and gave a terrible interview. I was ill prepared, and the experience helped me to realize that I needed to get my act together the next time I had an interview. I am deeply appreciative of the lessons I learned from the process at your college, which was well run, by the way. They helped me a great deal as my career has progressed.”

He smiled back, and we had a…

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“Dr. Incredible” announced her retirement with plenty of notice, so the department conducted a national search for a successor throughout the academic year. Her academic specialty was not particularly hard to come by, but she had been a terrific colleague and leader on the campus, a super-professor who was a mentor for dozens of students, led significant committees, and produced serious scholarship. She even had prepared baked goods for Monday mornings and had donated financially to the department to enhance faculty travel and student scholarships.

As the search committee began to review applications, it became clear that none of the candidates were the next Dr. Incredible. They were solid but not spectacular, promising but not omni-capable. Committee members began to believe that there was no way to replicate their about-to-depart colleague and said so publicly in the faculty…

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Nothing in academic hiring incites more controversy and conspiracy theories than the issue of inside candidates, either those who occupy a temporary or interim position that is being replaced by a permanent hire, or those who occupy another slot at the hiring institution and who seek to move into the advertised position. Finally—although this is a somewhat different case—there are the institution’s adjunct faculty members, who may be seeking to be hired for a tenure-track or full-time position.

I come to this discussion with a good bit of experience, both as an inside candidate (once) and as someone who has led searches that included insiders, some of whom obtained the job and some of whom did not. I’ve also at various stages of my career lost out to a couple of inside candidates, and once been hired instead of one, so to some degree I understand many aspects of the predicaments…

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Chronicle readers have such interesting lives, and when one of them wrote to me recently with a subject line that read, “Ethical Dilemma! Can You Help?,” I couldn’t wait to hear more.

The short version of the story went like this: “We have found a perfect candidate. Her qualifications far exceeded any of the competition. Her job talk was riveting. We had her meet with stakeholders all over campus, and after almost every encounter, people wrote notes or whispered various forms of, ‘Where did you find her?,’ and ‘She is clearly the one.‘ There is only one problem; several of us will feel terribly guilty if she comes. Our department is a snake pit, and this woman will come to hate it as much as we do. We need her, but it would be cruel to encourage her to come.”

That is an ethical dilemma. So, what to do?

As we all know, nasty organizations are usually made better only when the…

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This is the time of year when deans and department chairs dread the unexpected request for a meeting with a faculty member about an unspecified topic. A resignation may be coming, and our hearts flutter a bit at the thought of having to scramble to cover classes, conduct a late search, or, worse yet, engage in an uphill battle to fill the position the following year.

I have sat on the listening side of the desk enough to know that while I am sad to lose a colleague and perhaps a dear friend, people who submit a resignation usually do so with a heavy heart. I’ve had only a handful of departures that were purely about salary or teaching load. By far the most common reasons for moving are personal: professional advancement, social opportunities, or family necessities. The latter may involve factors like finding educational services for a special-needs child, caring for an aging parent…

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