I ran across a recent comment by Alan Wolfe that gave me pause: “The academic world suffers from too many people trying to hire people too much like themselves.”
While Wolfe was discussing ideological diversity, he really referred to one of the unfortunate tendencies that we have in academe: a relentless drive to retain comfort. Universities are, in many ways, the ultimate gated communities. A mentor once warned me of the ease with which searches can degenerate into a process of faculty members making copies of copies of copies of copies of themselves until departments become stale, tepid groups that are fearful of change. Such tendencies are not limited to faculty searches alone, but also to staff and, more dangerously, administrative searches. What he warned me about was not just people hiring newer versions of themselves as colleagues, but rather those who would hire slightly weaker versions of themselves, persons who wouldn’t threaten their places in the department or the university.
Over the years, I have seen with my own eyes search-committee chairs completely undermine very promising candidates in ways that were clearly defensive: They were afraid of suddenly looking less capable when a new standard arrived. It was very sad to see such a lack of personal confidence disrupt searches. What can we do to prevent searches from being driven by comfort, or even fear, rather than by excellence?
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7 Responses to The Ultimate Gated Communities
crunchycon - September 23, 2009 at 4:17 pm
Been there. Experienced that.
cwinton - September 23, 2009 at 5:00 pm
Well, for starters, administrators should be actively engaged in the process; e.g., minimal qualifications should be agreed to and clearly spelled out before commencing the search, a search committee’s charge should be to submit a list of at least 3 acceptable candidates, unranked, and hiring officers should question elimination of candidates who appear stronger than ones recommended. The hiring officer should meet with the search committee for a debriefing on the plusses and minuses of the candidates recommended. In my experience, it is not uncommon for attempts to be made to undermine candidacies of individuals who are, or are likely to become, stronger faculty members than one or more committee members, especially if one of them is the committee chair. Of course, a weak hiring officer may acquiesce to a powerful committee chair, but then any process is subject to disruption at its weakest link. Unfortunately, the tendency has been for academic institutions to use growth to compensate for poorly administered hiring procedures, a luxury that comes back to haunt when things aren’t going so well.
v8573254 - September 23, 2009 at 5:03 pm
I agree with your idea that employers tend to replicate themselves. And I mostly agree with you that the academic instiution may facilitate that practice.However, corporations do this, also. There’s a ____-type and a ____-type. One of the “coaching” activities by employment counselors includes learning to “read” the cues of one’s interviewer and mirror them.Yes, it takes a confident search chair or other administrator to move beyond the consensus.
chris_shea - September 23, 2009 at 8:35 pm
As David Olgivy famously said: “If each of us hire people who are smaller than we are, we shall become a company of dwarfs. But if each of us hires people who are bigger than we are, we shall become a company of giants.”In my experience, the critical issue is that there be institutional commitment to become a “company of giants”. If eveyone agrees that this is the objective, then the search process can be structured to identify to identify and pursue the “giants” in any field. None of us is a finished product. We can all keep growing but only if we are all committed to becoming a company of giants. First, build concensus about what we want to become and the process can be structured to deliver the desired results.
laoshi - September 24, 2009 at 12:13 pm
“What he warned me about was not just people hiring newer versions of themselves as colleagues, but rather those who would hire slightly weaker versions of themselves, persons who wouldn’t threaten their places in the department or the university.”Sounds like any other organization. Weasels are everywhere.
wrutledge - September 24, 2009 at 12:19 pm
experienced it too
11901736 - September 26, 2009 at 12:18 pm
My father was a professor for many years, and his policy was simply “Always hire someone better than yourself.” By definition, this challenges anyone’s comfort level, and most people don’t like doing it. In Silicon Valley there is a variation on this theme, a motto that says “The A-team hires an A-team, but the B-team hires a C-team.”