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[Harry]

I have an upcoming campus interview with a regional state univeristy. The department I am applying to is essentially a teaching department without graduate students and research. I was asked to give a job talk during the interview and was told that the audience will be comprised of faculty members and undergraduate students, probably including freshmen.

Now, how do I prepare the job talk? I assume that it would be inappropriate to use my current research work as the topic of the job talk. On the other hand, my teaching experience is limited and I haven't taught recently.

Your advice will be greatly appreciated!

[TMK]

My first piece of advice would be to ask the search-committee chair what sorts of presentations/talks have been successful in the past, and if they are looking for you to talk about anything in particular or if they are looking for you to present in a particular sort of way.

You'll also want to get a specific length of time that they expect you to speak, as well as to find out whether there will be a question/answer period and how long that will be.  The search chair will be much better able than anyone on this board to give you advice specific to this job and the expectations of the department.

If the search chair isn't forthcoming, the "standard" job talk is generally based on a chapter from one's dissertation or current research and is meant to give a sense of not only your research but also your public-speaking/teaching ability.  

At a regional state school, you may want to organize your talk in such a way that you can speak to how you would bring your research into your teaching and vice versa. If this is a school with a heavy teaching load, they will want to see that you have realistic expectations for how to balance teaching and research and one way to demonstrate that is to talk about how your teaching influences your research and vice versa and to present your research in a "teacherly" way.

This doesn't mean that you should dumb down your research but that you should consider how to present that scholarship in such a way that your presentation addresses the concerns of your audience.  

Good luck!

[Experienced]

Be sure to verify whether or not the department is actually expecting a "teaching demonstration." Often, committees do not make this clear to the applicants. You should ask directly whether or not your "job talk" is meant to illustrate the way you teach a class, and if you should proceed as if the audience members are your "students." If this is the case, the presentation would be geared toward demonstrating how you get the students involved in and excited about the material -- i.e., ask for comments/questions; pose rhetorical questions, use humorous examples, draw an interesting diagram, etc.  

Your question mentions that you are applying to a "teaching department"; hence it seems quite possible that the department actually wants the "teaching demonstration ... ." Obviously, such a demonstration is a much different activity than, for example, presenting a paper at a conference.

Good luck.