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[AF]

After several months of asking people "What direction do you think the department is going in?" and "What kind of jobs do your students get after graduation?", I now am into second interviews.

I have a second interview with the dean this week, "so that I can ask questions".  I met him at the first visit as well.

Besides logistics like salary, start-up, and moving timing, what can I ask?  I really feel like most of my questions were answered the first time around.  Any suggestions?

[five]

Questions for the dean might include:
What is the university-wide role of department?
What are the relations like among this dept and the other depts on campus?  How are its majors viewed by other depts?  
As someone outside the dept, how would you characterize the relations among the faculty in the dept?
What are this dept's particular strengths?
What kinds of challenges have been faced by this dept in recent years and how were they addressed?
What difficulties have you seen new faculty in this dept encountering?

Other logistics you might consider asking about are university based support for scholarship (e.g., travel funds, internal grants). Get some stats here--amount available, number of requests made & proportion granted, frequency of availability (1 trip/year funded? limits on the number of internal grants?).  

And, of course, the usual questions about the P&T process, expectations for success, mentoring programs for jr faculty, etc.

[Search Committee Member]

If you have any particular needs for teaching well -- library resources, "smart" classrooms, money for off-campus learning experiences (depending on your field, of course) -- or any new programs you'd like to help develop, this is a time to gently sow the seed on what you might be negotiating for. Don't make it sound like demands at this stage, but do try to interest the dean in things you should be doing for the students so when you do ask for these things (after you have an offer) s/he will already be on board. Do remember you're still in the stage of selling yourself: make your questions at least 50% reflect "how can I help you?" and "how can I very best do the job you want to hire someone for " -- though, at this stage, it's fine to have the other half be the "what will you do for me" questions about summer funding, tenure requirements, mentoring, etc.